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THE 



SECRET OF SUCCESS 



BY 






FRANK E MITCHELL. 



" There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune : 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 
And we must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures." 



-:o:- 




KEW YORK, //it^ 



t 



1894- 



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W 



HOW TO SUCCEED IN LIFE. 

"Nothing Succeeds Like Success." 



Valuable Pointers for Everyone whose Aim is to get out of Life 
the Best Possible Results. 



Many years of study, Experience and Observation 
" BOILED DOWN." 



KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 



A book of largest value to every man and woman, young or 
old — regardless of their present condition — who desires to succeed. 



PRACTICAL— NOT THEORETICAL. 



COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
FRANK E. MITCHELL 



- 



Success Publishing Co. , 

449 Grand St. , 

New York. 



COFYEIGHT, 1894, BY FRANK E. MITCHELL. 
(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED) 



MINERVA PRESS, 434 BROOME JSTHEET, 
NEW YORK CITY. 



PREFACE. 

"A word to the wise is sufficient." 

"Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise 
the wisdom of thy words." 

"The knowledge that a man can use is the only real 
knowledge; the only knowledge that has life and growth in 
it and converts itself into practical power. The rest hangs 
like dust about the brain, or dries like raindrops off the 
stones. "— Froude. 

Personal experience is a teacher from whom 
we learn the most practical lessons, but too 
often we have to pay for such experience, a 
price altogether incommensurate with the lesson 
learned. If we would but lay aside egotism and 
self-conceit, and face the situation in which we 
find ourselves, and study it from the standpoint 
of the failures or successes that have come to 
others similarly placed, we would be enabled to 
steer away from the pitfalls of failure and grasp 
the cords which draw toward success. 

No one man knows it all. "It takes all man- 
kind to make a man." It is to the honor of hu- 
man nature that the best fruits of all together 
suffice for no more than to make each one 
what he may be. 



Vi -PREFACE. 

The author has learned in the school of ex- 
perience—a portion of which learning is the re- 
sult of mistakes on his part-many things which 
might have been acquired in a less expensive 
manner; he has had chances for observing men 
and their methods, and the result of these meth- 
ods, and he has made use of these opportunities. 
From this experience and observation this little 
book has its being. 

It has been his endeavor to condense and 
arrange the matter herein contained, in a way 
that will encourage all those who may peruse 
its pages to put forth their best efforts. He has 
aimed to use only such illustrations as have a 
direct bearing on the subject of success, and 
which will tend to guide youth — and, perhaps, 
some who are no longer young — into the paths 
which lead to the desired end, and, at the same 
time, to place a warning at every corner where 
one might be induced to wander into roads 
which end in failure. 

If by his work any are started on "the road 
that is right," or if it serves to prevent mistakes 
that bring failure and remorse, his object will 
have been accomplished. 

Yours for Success, 

F. E. M. 

New York, March, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

The Secret of Success , ; 1 

Degrees of Success 6 

Success in Business 9 

Work 13 

Opportunity 16 

Character 19 

Education 24 

Environment , 27 

Self- Determination 30 

"Sand" 33 

Perseverance 34 

Success and Failure in Life 45 

Try Again 49 

What the World Owes Us 52 

The Accumulation of Money. . 55 

Rise Higher 59 

How to Succeed 60 

Luck 62 

One Man's Experience 64 



vra CONTENTS. 

Page 

Ideas of P. T. Barnum 67 

Mr. Chas. A. Banting's Opinion 69 

Life is Real 71 

Rules of Life 72 

Maxims of Baron Rothschild 75 

For Young Business Men 77 

Which Class Are You In? 82 

Ambition 86 

Gambling. 89 

Chastity 91 

The Fool's Prayer 93 

The Causes of Failure 94 

Words of Wisdom 98 

Hon. Stephen Allen's Guide to Success 101 

How to Become Rich 103 

A Sound Body Essential to Success in Life., 105 

The Influence of A Good Wife 112 

The Rich and Great not Always Happy. ... 121 

Summary .125 

Conclusion 130 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS, 

The man who is unconscious of the means 
whereby he attains his ends, will succeed in at- 
taining them only now and then, intermittingly, 
spasmodically. True success is not the result 
of luck, guess or chance; it is the ripened fruit 
of persistent industry wedded to intelligent 
conception, and the reason why so few of those 
who try , succeed, is not that they set the standard 
too high, or that they have not the ability to 
reach it, but because they lose heart on the road, 
relax effort, yield to discouragements, and so be- 
come careless or indifferent. They lose sight of 
the end they had in view and allow themselves 
to drift with the current, resting on their oars 
Micawber like, waiting for something to turn up. 
The world is full of such people. One sees them 
everywhere — good fellows we call them; true» 
they go to make up the social economy, but so 



2 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

far as the world gets anything ont of them, or is 
made better because they are in it, they may as 
well have been sticks or stones as men. 

What the world needs is men with pluck, grit, 
"sand" and that indomitable will-force that 
causes a man to ride rough shod over all obsta- 
cles — in the phrase of the day to "get there" risk 
or no risk. I believe that most men have one or 
more of these elements in their make-up, and if I 
can but succeed in arousing this in-dwelling, 
dormant power into action in any of the readers 
of this book, it will have fulfilled the mission up- 
on which it was sent. 

If you were about to embark upon a voyage of 
discovery to some country of which little or no- 
thing was known, how solicitous you would be 
about your equipment, and how thoroughly you 
would study all routes that could possibly be 
taken in your anxiety to select the one that 
promised the best results; how earnestly you 
would reflect upon the difficulties and dangers 
you would be likely to encounter, that you might 
devise the best way to avoid them. No detail 
would be too trivial for consideration and when 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS 3 

you had done your best would you not fear lest 
something had been overlooked ? Once started 
how unremittingly you would bend every effort 
toward the accomplishment of your object. Your 
vigilance would be without abatement or ces- 
sation until success had crowned your pur- 
pose. 

How much more important then, the necessity 
of careful preparation towards making this voy- 
age of life, whose passage is fraught with diffi- 
culties and dangers that wreck all but the 
staunchest craft. 

The ocean of life, is more tempestuous than 
natural seas, unreliable and treacherous to a 
degree that only those who have navigated it 
know. Insincerity, allurement, baneful influ- 
ence, greed, strife, unfair advantage, hatred and 
malice, are but a few of the shoals, pitfalls or 
quicksands, to be encountered on life's journey. 

Happy indeed, then, is he who sets himself 
down and wisely counts the cost; who plans the 
battle and fights it out with an eye single to 
victory. 

If your son, the boy you had carefully reared, 



4 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

was about to start in business in some distant 
city, away from your paternal and watchful 
care, how earnest would be your counsel to him 
concerning places and things to be avoided and 
the society and influence to be sought. How 
thoroughly you would advise him to cultivate 
the virtues which go to make the man and avoid 
the vices whose fruit is ruin. 

The world has not grown any wiser in this re- 
gard than it was when Polonius gave the fol- 
lowing parting advice to his son Laertes: 

And these few precepts in thy memory 
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
Nor any unproportioned thought his act. 
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade. 
* * * * * 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



S ha kespeare. 



One of the most important things relating to 
success in life is self control. A man who ex- 
pects or desires success should never permit his 
temper to get the better of his judgment. He 
should never allow himself to utter a hasty- 
word. Cool calculation will win where hasty 
words or acts will lose. Be prompt in every- 
thing, hasty in nothing. 

" He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he 
that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 



DEGREES OF SUCCESS. 

Whatever success may mean in the abstract, 
to you, reader, it means the fulfillment of desire, 
the attainment of the end you had in view. 
Success is a qualified quantity, that is to say, it 
is progressive, yet conditional — to put it more 
plainly, it varies as individual ideals, tempera- 
ments, environment, natural gifts and inclina- 
tions vary. For these reasons not many men are 
successful in the same direction, but I truly 
believe all may succeed in some direction. A 
small success satisfies some men, others are am- 
bitious on wider lines, others yet who do not 
count themselves successful unless they are in 
the van, grand marshals of the procession. 

In the battle of life all cannot be generals ; the 
field, staff, line, rank and file go to make up 
the army. Each individual has his place and a 
work to do, and if the work is well done, pro- 
motion follows. I have said success is qualified, 



DEGREES OF SUCCESS. 7 

by that I mean it is a thing of degree, and 
success becomes real, only when that degree 
is reached, and ambition satisfied. 

To illustrate, take the case of the ordina- 
ry farm hand, his ambition is to own' a 
small farm, to marry, rear a family and give 
his children the start in life which he did 
not have — if he accomplishes this, he has met 
success. So the man who contracts to build a 
ship according to plans and specifications, guar- 
anteeing a certain displacement and a minimum 
rate of speed, if he fulfills his contract, he has 
earned success. Now in the case of the farmer or 
the shipbuilder, it does not necessarily follow 
that they will not go forward to other successes; 
the one may buy a larger farm and the other 
build a better and a faster ship. Success is 
circumscribed only by the ability of the man to 
command it. 

Consider a moment the matter of financial suc- 
cess — and there are thousands of men who think 
that money is the only measure of success, of 
whom I am not one— perhaps there is no way in 
which the degree in success is so clearly shown. 



8 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

In our grandfathers' day $10,000 was a compe- 
tence and the possessor of $50,000was considered 
rich. Taking it for granted that the $10,000 man 
and the $50,000 man wrought for their money 
— that it represented an equivalent of energy, 
industry and perseverance — one cannot deny 
their success, yet from a superficial point of 
view one was five times as successful as the 
other. But in these days when fortunes have 
reached colossal proportions, the multi-million- 
aire looks down upon the little fellow with his 
one or two hundred thousand almost with con- 
tempt — when the cold fact is, that gauged by 
his gifts, the $200,000 man has been as success- 
ful as his vastly richer brother. So it would 
seem that success is not only a thing of degree, 
but the gifts, the necessary qualifications, are 
things of degree also. They vary as human na- 
ture varies, and are not exactly alike in any two 
individuals. Yet analysis of the fundamental 
principles which govern and control all success 
will show that each successful man possessed 
the same ingredients. They do not differ in kind 
but do differ in degree. 



SUCCESS IN BUSINESS. 

Success in business depends to some extent 
upon circumstances, but there are certain rules 
and requirements which must not be ignored. 

Before entering a business or profession you 
should feel assured that you are qualified for 
the calling you have chosen, Many a man has 
wrecked what might have been a successful life, 
by getting into the wrong niche at the start and 
sticking there. This decided — how and when 
to start — bend all your energies toward the end 
you have in view. Eecreation or enjoyment 
should be given no entertainment until you have 
done full and complete justice to your business; 
if it does not interest you wholly, be sure you 
are in the wrong pew. Master every detail of 
your business, become an authority, make it 
your object to stand at the head of your partic- 
ular business. 



10 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Leave outside speculation alone, you cannot 
make one business bolster another. Few men 
can attend to more than one business at a time 
and succeed. 

Do not tell stories during business hours; if 
they have any place in life at all, tell them in 
leisure hours. 

When you go home leave your business affairs 
behind you; the recital of them will not add to 
your home enjoyment, and will likely bore your 
friends. 

Make promptness, order, system and regu- 
larity your watchwords 

Do not dabble with business of which you 
know nothing, nor deceive yourself by thinking 
you know another man's business better than 
he does himself. If you do, then you must ex- 
pect to be called a busybody and a meddler in 
what does not concern you. 

Avoid sharp words and personalities; they 
will bring you neither business nor friends, and 
may lose you both. 

Do not build up a reputation for eccentricity. 

Keep clear of the law — unless you make it 



SUCCESS IN BUSINESS. 11 

your profession; it is better to lose $5.00 unjustly 
than to spend §500.00 to recover it. 

"Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, 
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee." 

Attend to your business correspondence 
promptly, write clearly, briefly and to the 
point. Never write anything you do not mean, 
and would not be willing to stand by if forced 
so to do in court. Many men have thought of 
this when too late. 

Be careful. about your appointments. Keep 
memoranda of them. Appointments once made 
become debts. "If I have made an appointment 
with you I owe you punctuality; I have no right 
to squander your time if I squander my own." 

Be liberal arid help others when you can, but 
never give what you cannot afford simply be- 
cause your neighbor, who can afford it, gives. 

If possible, keep ahead of the times, anticipate 
the wishes of your customers; study the market 
from their standpoint as well as from your own. 

Use your own brains. Do not depend upon 
others to think for you. Have as few confidants 



12 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

as possible, the fewer the better. Make few 
promises, but keep every promise that you do 
make, or early make known your inability to 
do so. 

Endorse no man's noie, become surety for 
others under no circumstances. If you can afford 
to help your friends, and desire to do so, do it 
directly ; but do not make yourself liable for the 
default of another. 

Read carefully and follow these common sense 
rules of business, and success will attend your 
efforts. 



The wise carry their knowledge as they do their watches not 
for display but for their own use. — Sidney Smith. 



WORK. 

He who would succeed must work. "The race 
is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong/' but the presumption favors the one 
who has these qualifications. Were I asked to 
name the most potent of failure's factors 1 would 
unhesitatingly say idleness. The average man if 
willing to work can succeed in some direction, 
even though his success is abridged or qualified. 

The lazy man, the visionary, the half-hearted 
man, and the man who depends upon others to 
do the work which he ought to do himself, must 
fail per se. 

Idleness is the bete noir of our generation. It 
is the dream of far too many of our young men 
and women to float through life gracefully and 
contentedly ; such a life invariably yields the 
fruit of trial and failure, and this without re- 
gard to social position or financial standing. 



14 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Take life philosophically and be happy say 
they; but there are some philosophers who tell 
us we were not born to be happy, and surely 
it needs no philosopher to tell us we were not 
born to laziness. 

The degree of success we attain is the meas- 
ure of work we do. Work, work honestly, yet 
boldly, with a force and a dash that will bend 
or break down all opposition. The timid soul 
never wins in the battle of life; the man who 
cannot meet a difficulty without solicitude or a 
thrill of apprehension, courts failure and invites 
disaster. 

The world cares but little about what you 
have been. It is what you are now, what you 
can and what you will do that regulates your 
standing and worth to the community in which 
you live, and if you have failed in an under- 
taking, it will not help you to dwell on your 
misfortune. Work is the only thing that will 
help you, the only power that will raise you an 
inch above your present level. 

All legitimate work is honorable and ifj you 
cannot get the kind of work that is best suited 



WORK. 15 

to your ideas or ability, take what you can 
get. It is better to drive a truck or sweep 
the streets than to remain idly brooding over 
your troubles, and if you do your work well, 
pocket all foolish pride and live on less than 
your income, you will make a gain and eventu- 
ally get what you deserve. 



" Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears. The used 
key is always bright." — Franklin. 



OPPORTUNITY. 

What we, who want success, like best — 
though we do not always realize it — is work; 
and what we most need is an opportunity to 
work. 

This is the way God is good to us. He did 
not give us the world with the houses all built; 
food ready to eat; books all written and clothes 
all made and ready to put on. He knew we 
should like nothing so much as building our 
own houses; raising our own food products; 
writing our own books and manufacturing our 
own clothing fabrics. He was kind to us in 
many ways, but He was kindest of all when He 
left something for us to do in the world. 

Take for example any of the marvels of engi- 
neering skill which we possess to-day. God 
might have given them to us ready-made had 
He so chosen, but He was too kind for that; 



OPPORTUNITY. il 

what He did do, was to give us the opportunity 
to build them ourselves. True He furnished 
the granite and the iron, but the granite was 
buried in the mountain, and the iron in the 
earth. He did not even furnish us the imple- 
ments necessary to work the quarry and the 
mine; but He gave us brains to make them, 
and taught us how to apply them to our use, 
that we might have the pleasure of creating 
those mighty monuments which testify to the 
transcendent power He has bestowed upon us. 

The saddest thing in life is not so much in 
doing without things, as wasting an oppor- 
tunity, or never having an opportunity to get 
them. Whittier writes: 

" Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these: It might have been." 

What a man wants is a chance. If he is not 
very talented, he does not expect to do much, 
or try to do much; but he likes to have the 
chance to do what he knows he can do, and 
do well. 

The work of the world would never be done 
if we were not created with a tendency to like 



18 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

to do the tiling we can do the best. Animals 
do by instinct what God wants them to do, 
they do not have to be forced to do it; so then, 
if yon expect to succeed in life, follow the bent 
of your inclination — always provided it is an 
honest one. 

This is your opportunity. Do not allow your- 
self to be influenced in some other direction, or 
your judgment to be warped or biased by what 
others may say or think. Reason is high above 
instinct. Use your reason, bending every ener- 
gy in the direction of your desire, and by pat- 
ient, persevering industry, sooner or later, you 
will reach your Utopia. 



CHARACTER. 

Love of character, to him who would- win 
success, furnishes a capital and yields an in- 
come, that can be gained in no other way. "No 
consolation" says Chatham, "comes to him at 
whom the slow, unmoving finger of scorn is 
pointed." "Love of character was the eagle on 
which Rome rose to empire.". It was the "love 
of character animating the bosoms of her sons " 
upon which America depended in those early 
struggles that tried men's souls. Reputation — 
which is but another name for character — 
should be cherished as carefully as we cherish 
life itself, for, once lost, it can never be fully 
regained. TVe can build upon a broken reputa- 
tion, but the structure will be seamed and 
marred, and in spite of all we can do we 
cannot wholly obliterate the scars. "Abstain 
from even the appearance of evil" says St. 



20 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Paul, and well for you, young man, just start- 
ing on the road to success, if you heed the 
warning. Above all things, shun intoxicants 
as you would a contagious disease. There is 
no success in the wine-glass, the whiskey -bot- 
tle or the beer-keg; their fruit is blasted hope, 
enfeebled body, remorse, ruin, death. 

It is not my purpose to urge this question of 
temperance, only so far as it affects the subject 
matter of this book, but knowing, as I well .do, 
that intemperance is the rock upon which are 
stranded yearly tens of thousands of our 
young men, otherwise well equipped by nat- 
ure to make a success of life, I feel I should 
fall short of my duty and this book ignomin- 
iously fail in its mission, were I to keep silent 
concerning this most insidious foe to success. 

Read Colonel Ingersoll's eulogy of whiskey, 
and then read Rev. Dr. Buckley's powerful 
paraphrase upon it and decide whose advice 
you will follow; and be sure of this, that as 
you decide, so far as you are concerned, you 
decide once for all the question of success or 
failure. 



CHARACTER. 21 

Ingersoll's Eulogy of Whiskey. 

"I send you some of the most wonderful 
whiskey that ever drove the skeleton from the 
feast or painted landscapes in the brain of man. 
It is the mingled souls of wheat and corn. In 
it you will find the sunshine and shadow that 
chased each other over the billowy fields, the 
breath of June, the carol of the lark, the dew 
of night, the wealth of summer and autumn's 
rich content — all golden with imprisoned light. 
Drink it, and you will hear the voice of men 
and maidens sino-ino- the "Harvest Home" 
mingled with the laughter of children. Drink 
it, and you will feel within your blood the start- 
led dawns, the dreamy, tawny dusks of perfect 
days. For forty years this liquid joy has been 
within staves of oak, longing to touch the lips 
of man." 

Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley replied through the 
columns of the New York Evening Telegram as 
follows : 

"We do not intimate that^ Colonel Ingersoll is 
a drunkard, but that he is in bondage to his 
own self-indulgent, reckless, arrogant spirit, 



22 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

and that he understands license but knows 
nothing of true liberty. 

No other man who possesses such wealth of 
language would debauch it to such a service. 
Had he studied the Bible he hates and his 
favorite Shakespeare he might have written 
truthfully : 

The Direful Work of Whiskey. 

"I send you some of the most wonderful 
whiskey that ever brought a skeleton into the 
closet or painted scenes of lust and bloodshed 
in the brain of man. It is the ghosts of wheat 
and corn crazed by the loss of their natural 
bodies. In it you will find a transient sunshine 
chased by a shadow as cold as an arctic mid- 
night in which the breath of June grows icy 
and the carol of the lark gives place to the fore- 
boding cry of the raven. 

"Drink it, and you shall have 'woe,' 'sorrow,' 
'babbling,' and 'wounds without cause;' your 
'eyes shall behold strange women,', and your 
'heart shall utter perverse things.' Drink it 
deep, and you shall hear the voices of demons 



CHARACTER. 23 

shrieking, women wailing and worse than or- 
phaned children mourning the loss of a father 
who yet lives. Drink it deep and long, and 
serpents will hiss in your ears, coil themselves 
about your neck and seize you with their fangs; 
for, ' at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth 
like an adder.' For forty years this liquid 
death has been within staves of oak, harmless 
there as purest water. I send it to you that 
you may ' put an enemy in your mouth to steal 
away your brains.' And yet I call myself your 
friend." 



EDUCATION. 

A university education is an excellent addi- 
tion to a young man's equipment, but some of 
the most helpless men in the struggle with the 
world are those with a college education; while 
some of the strongest, brightest and most suc- 
cessful men the world has ever known have 
been self-made, and possessed little or none of 
what is commonly called education, but they 
did possess practical knowledge. 

The best capital for young men, according to 
Chauncey M. Depew, is "legs and brains." 
This is what he said in an admirable address 
before an enthusiastic audience at the New 
York Trades School. The great difficulty with 
young men now-a-days is that they are not 
educated sufficiently for the professions, but 
are too well educated to become laboring men. 
The trade schools, which open opportunities 



EDUCATION, 25 

for young men to become educated mechanics, 
received the cordial indorsement of Mr. Depew, 
and it is because the mechanical departments 
require both legs and brains that Mr. Depew 
suggested that these two constituted the best 
capital for an ambitious young man these days. 
Frank Harrison, in his Family Magazine, says: 
"I often hear men, and young men too, com- 
plaining about their lack of education, and 
how they are handicapped in life's struggle on 
this account. Every one of these complainers 
could acquire education if they had a mind to do 
so. As a matter of fact, in most cases, they don't 
really want it, and if they were suddenly pos- 
sessed of a so-called education they would not 
be any better off. Many of the greatest men in 
the world in early life were poverty-stricken 
boys and young men, and fought their way to 
fame, fortune and education amidst the hardest 
kind of hardships. Daniel Webster's advan- 
tages of early education were exceedingly slen- 
der — he worked on the farm most of the year 
and went to school only a few months in the 
winter; but later on in life his thirst for knowl- 



26 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

edge gave him an education which easily made 
him the peer of any man as lawyer, orator or 
statesman. 

The fact of the matter is that this question of 
education rests entirely with ourselves. If we 
are made of the right sort of stuff and have vim, 
ambition and backbone, and are not lazy and 
indolent, we will get all the education we re- 
quire; and whenever I hear a full grown man 
growling and complaining about his lack of edu- 
cation, I make up my mind that such an indi- 
vidual don't need it at all. In speaking of 
education I am reminded of what a philosopher 
once said — I don't know the author's name or 
exact words — but I think it was something like 
this: " The poorest education that teaches self- 
control is better than the best that neglects." 



ENVIRONMENT. 

Health, heredity and environment are import- 
ant factors in the individual make-up, and on 
these three things more depends than is cred- 
ited by the superficial thinker. Many suppose 
that we are not responsible for our health, or 
for defects in body or intellect; while this is 
true, to a certain extent, it is not wholly so. 
Health can, by proper care and out-door exer- 
cise, be improved, and life and usefulness pro- 
longed. And I have yet to see a man of long- 
continued success who did not take, for the 
most part, excellent care of his health. Now-a- 
days it is considered "smart" by a certain class 
of young men to spend the biggest half of the 
night in more or less pronounced dissipation, 
and to arrive home at about the time the clear- 
headed man of business is awakening. This is 
a mistake that will be realized with a vengeance 
later on in life. 



88 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Defects of heredity can be overcome — to a 
great degree — by intelligent effort if we but 
study the cause for such defect. To do this we 
must possess brains, and a mind strong enough 
to act up to our best knowledge and ideas. 

Environment is almost wholly under our con- 
trol, and yet it is the direct cause of the down- 
fall of many who would otherwise have been 
successful. Nothing will more affect the future 
of a young man or women than their associa- 
tions. We partake in a large degree — some- 
times unconsciously — of the influences immedi- 
ately surrounding us, hence the great import- 
ance of choosing the right kind of companions. 

Associate with the right kind of people or 
none. By this I do not mean to have nothing to 
do with a man unless he is correct in all his 
habits of life— for unfortunately we must mingle 
to a certain extent with men of this kind — but 
do not cultivate the friendship or copy the 
methods, of any man who is not morally clean, 
straightforward and industrious. 

You can find pure-minded companions with 
little effort, and they will afford you much more 



ENVIRONMENT. 29 

happiness and profit than those whose moral 
sense is blinded and whose habits are loose. 

By associating with those older in wisdom 
and experience than yourself, and allowing 
their influence to guide you, you can make 
more rapid progress toward the goal you seek 
than would otherwise be possible. 

Taken as an individual, every man is weak, 
but united with and strengthened by other men 
— each placing a proper value upon the others, 
each one can have the strength of all combined. 



" Prudence, like a beacon, lights the path to safety." 

A life without a purpose is a languid; drifting thing: every- 
day we ought to renew our purpose, saying to ourselves, "This 
day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto 
done is naught." 



SELF- DETERMIN ATIONo 

One of the most powerful incentives to suc- 
cess is self-determination. Many a man is 
wrecked right here. His aim is all right— he 
may even see the desired goal and have picked 
the course to it on the chart, he may even be 
possessed of the requisite energy and ambition, 
and feel an assurance that he has started right 
— and yet he fails. Why? Just because he 
lacks determination. There was nothing the 
matter with his theory; he meant to pursue it, 
but he didn't; he waited, allowed himself to be 
turned from his purpose either by some ob- 
stacle he encountered, or by some influence 
brought to bear upon him, and moved out of the 
course he had laid down, thinking he would 
readily drift around and beyond the obstacle 
that had swerved him from his course. 

Fatal mistake. Success was never attained in 
any such way. Only the determined man sue- 



SELF-DETERMINATION. 31 

ceeds. Push over or through every obstacle in 
your path; be determined to succeed even if 
you have to carry the obstacle with you; keep 
it ahead of you all the time until it wears itself 
away and vanishes before the goal is reached — 
as it will vanish if you are determined it shall. 
Self-determination, other things being equal, 
will bring success. Each advancing step is the 
inheritor of all past steps. Nature keeps and 
holds every step gained and carries forward in 
its development all that has accrued, and as we 
advance toward success in life, looking back- 
ward, we can see foreshadowed every previous 
gain. Thus we gain experience, which backed 
by unflinching determination, yields the ripened 
fruit of success. 

Superintendent Thomas Byrnes, of the New 
York police, when asked his secret of success, 
said: 

"I attribute whatever success I've had in life 
to the faculty of meeting emergencies with 
schemes of my own devising. The secret of 
any man's success in life is ability to meet new 



32 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

situations in life with new ideas. It's the 
ability to devise, to create. You may be a very 
good man in your business or profession, but, if 
you do your work mechanically, you'll never be 
anything else. But, if you have ideas, if you 
meet emergencies with resources peculiar to 
yourself, then you are sure to rise in the 
world." 

* * 

There are many men and women to-day occu- 
pying lowly positions in life, annoyed by un- 
congenial surroundings, who possess sufficient 
ability — if trained — to warrant them a place 
and name among men. As a rule we lack cour- 
age to branch out from- the scenes we are 
familiar with; but, oftentimes, the tree that has 
been transplanted thrives better for the change 
of soil. If you have ability — branch out. 



SAND. 



I observed a locomoti ve in the railroad yard one day, 
It was waiting in the roundhouse, where the locomotives stay; 
It was panting for the journey, it was coaled and fully manned, 
And it had a box the fireman was filling full of sand. 

It appears that locomotives cannot always get a grip 
On their slender iron pavement, 'cause the wheels are apt to slip. 
And when they reach a slippery spot, their tactics they command, 
And to get a grip upon the rail, they sprinkle it with sand. 

It's about this way with travel along life's slippery track — 
If your load is rather heavy and you're always sliding back; 
So, if a common locomotive you completely understand, 
You'll provide yourself in starting with a good supply of sand. 

If your track is steep and hilly and you have a heavy grade, 
And if those who've gone before you have the rails quite slippery 

made, 
If you ever reach the summit of the upper tableland, 
You'll find you'll have to do it with a liberal use of sand. 

If you strike some frigid weather and discover to your cost, 
That you're liable to slip on a heavy coat of frost, 
Then some prompt, decided action will be called into demand, 
And you'll slip way to the bottom if you haven't any sand. 

You can get to any station that is on life's schedule seen, 

If there's fire beneath the boiler of ambition's strong machine, 

And you'll reach a place called Flushtown at a rate of speed 

that's grand, 
If for all the slippery places you' ve a good supply of sand. 

— Richmond (Ind.) Register. 



PERSEVERANCE. 

Perseverance is an important factor of success 
in any undertaking. It is the ''continual drop- 
ping" which wears the stone; it is step after 
step that brings us to the end of our journey, 
and it is well-directed effort — long- continued 
— which accomplishes our purpose in life, what- 
ever it may be. 

A Boston merchant once told me of a New 
York salesman who called on him for an order, 
which was refused. On his next trip he called 
again and was again refused. For eight years 
the salesman called each time he was in Boston 
without once receiving the order he sought. 
Not discouraged he called again, found the 
merchant in need of what he had to sell, and 
secured an order for a large bill of goods. This 
was the beginning of a large and lucrative trade 
which could never have been realized without 
great patience and perseverance. 



PERSEVERANCE. 35 

The career of the late G-eorge W. Childs, of 
Philadelphia, is full of instructive lessons in 
perseverance and industry. Born of parents in 
the middle class in life, he received only a com- 
mon school education. His parents, who were 
not blessed with riches, died when the boy 
was very young, and the future of the lad 
depended entirely upon his own exertions. At 
an early age he developed a sense of the value 
of time and an inclination toward independence 
and self-support. 

When but twelve years old he was errand 
boy in a Baltimore book store, and the next 
year he entered the United States Navy where 
he spent fifteen months, during which time he 
gained a knowledge of order and discipline, 
which was of great value in conducting his 
large business interests in after life. When 
about fourteen he went to Philadelphia, and 
got work as clerk and errand-boy in a book- 
store at a salary of $3 a week. Here he applied 
himself to acquire a thorough knowledge of the 
business with such good result that, at the age 
of sixteen, he was intrusted with the responsi- 



36 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

bility of attending the book auctions, and soon 
became known as the regular representative of 
his employer at the trade sales in New York 
and Boston. 

At eighteen he started in the book business 
for himself. His money capital was small, but 
any deficiency in this was made up by his 
energy and attention to business and the confi- 
dence of his associates. Success attended him 
to such a degree that, at the age of twenty-one, 
the head of the publishing-house of R. B. Peter- 
son & Co. sought an alliance with him, and the 
firm of Childs & Peterson was the result. 

Like everything else that young Childs had 
attempted he made the publishing business a 
success, and continued in it as the leading spirit 
until 1864, at which time he bought the Phila- 
delphia Public Ledger. This had been his avowed 
ambition for many years, and, while he could 
see no prospect of the paper being offered for 
sale, or of his ability to secure the amount of 
money necessary for its purchase, he yet had 
every confidence in himself, and worked on the 
principle that "all things come to him who 



PERSEVERANCE. 37 

waits" and works. His success as a newspaper 
publisher is too well known to require more 
than passing note; but, by his indefatigable 
perseverance and close application to the re- 
requirements of the times and people, he was 
enabled to accomplish more than his dreams 
had ever pictured. 

His task was not an easy one. It is said that 
for several years he personally superintended 
every department of the Ledger, and worked 
harder than any man in his employ. And for 
this perseverance he was well repaid. His 
name became honorably known wherever the 
English language is spoken; his friends were 
among the first men of two continents, and his 
social qualities brought together the leading 
people of almost every nation as his guests. 

One of the secrets of his success was this: He 
was as faithful when an errand boy or a clerk 
as he was in after life; he was an exemplifica- 
tion of the Master's promise that he who is 
faithful over a few things shall be made ruler 
over many things. Generosity and liberality 
were chief among his qualities, his public and 



38 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

private charities were many, and yet he is said 
to have left a fortune of five millions. 

Abraham Lincoln's life was another example 
of what patient perseverance will accomplish. 
His parents were so poor that they could not 
even afford a tallow candle for their boy to 
study by, and his only light was that furnished 
by the blazing logs in the fire-place. His ante- 
cedents were so low in the social scale that he 
once remarked, with a degree of sadness, that 
he had no ancestry at all, much less an ancestry 
to boast of. But he had a thirst for knowledge 
and a desire to rise in the world. He labored 
under disadvantages that would have dismayed 
a less determined spirit and what he accom- 
plished was done by patient toil and applica- 
tion, making the most of his opportunities at 
all times. These were the qualities which pecu- 
liarly fitted him to become the wise and able 
executive of this great nation. 

George Stephenson worked at the improve- 
ment of his locomotive for fifteen years before 
success crowned his efforts. 

Watt was engaged for more than thirty years 



PERSEVERANCE. 39 

upon the condensing -engine before he brought 
it to perfection. 

Cyrus W. Field laid the American cable only 
after years of study, labor and hardship. 

Sir Walter Scott was all but a dunce when a 
boy; he accomplished his great labors only by 
plodding, patient perseverance. 

Benjamin Disraeli at first made a failure of 
literature, and his first efforts as an orator were 
laughed to scorn, but he patiently worked for 
success and accomplished it. 

Bernard Palissy, the Frenchman, experi- 
mented for sixteen years, suffering the most 
abject poverty, before he learned to enamel 
pottery. 

Charles Goodyear patiently and persistently 
experimented for years, spending his means 
and reducing his family to utter destitution, 
before he perfected the process of vulcanizing 
rubber. But he succeeded, and gave to the 
world a staple that is now applied in different 
countries to some 500 uses. 

Robert Bonner began work on the old Hartford 
Courant when a boy for $25 a year with board 



40 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

and washing. He was allowed to earn twelve 
and one -half cents an hour for setting type 
overtime, and frequently worked from twelve 
to fourteen hours per day. 

Stephen Girard started life as a poor cabin-boy, 
but died worth nine million dollars. 

A. T. Stewart was a poor Irish boy, but he 
eventually paid taxes on a million and a-half 
dollars of income per year. 

John Jacob Astor was a poor farmer boy, and 
died worth twenty millions. 

Commodore Vanderbilt began life by rowing 
a boat between Staten Island and New York; 
he died worth fifty millions. 

The list could be continued indefinitely; we 
have examples around us everywhere, and the 
intelligent observer will readily decide that it 
is the men who practice perseverance that 
make the successes of life rather than those 
who are born with unusual gifts. 

Among the many instances of what may be 
accomplished by perseverance, that have come 
under the writer's personal notice, I mention 
the following: 



PERSEVERANCE. 41 

"When a boy I was a pupil of a small district - 
school in New Hampshire. One of my school- 
mates was a boy of very inferior intellect — in 
fact, he was the dunce of the school. Lessons 
easily learned by the rest of us were as Greek 
to him; he was always stumbling over the first 
principles of a problem long after the other 
scholars had solved it. In the same school was 
another boy, naturally as brilliant as the other 
was dull; he could master any mathematical 
problem, and repeat whole pages of history from 
a single reading; he was a fine penman, was 
always up in his examinations, and was in 
every way considered a young man of generous 
natural endowment. 

Years passed. One day I met the man of 
genius in Boston, and in the course of conver- 
sation I drew from him the story of the in- 
tervening years. He started with the brighest 
prospects and secured without difficulty a lucra- 
tive and desirable position, but soon became 
weary of it, allowed his interest in it to lag, 
courted gay companions, contracted bad habits, 
and so lost one position after another. Not that 



42 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

he was not liked by his employers — all agreed 
that he was a talented man and conld be a valu- 
able one if he would, but being unreliable they 
did not want him. 

Some years after I learned that my gifted 
schoolmate had passed beyond the river; con- 
tinuing his dissolute habits his health became 
undermined, and contracting a cold it ended 
in quick consumption. 

About this time business called me to one of 
the principal inland cities of New England. 
Alighting from the train, one of the first persons 
I saw was my other schoolmate — the once fa- 
mous dunce. He greeted me pleasantly and 
invited me to his house, giving me cordial wel- 
come to one of the pleasantest homes I have 
ever seen. I need not say he was no longer a 
dunce. By constant and studious application 
he had overcome the intellectual sluggishness 
of youth. Some years before he had secured a 
position with the railroad company, where his 
strict application to business, steady habits, and 
honesty were recognized by the management 
and promotion naturally followed, so that at 



PERSEVERANCE. 43 

the time I met him he was holding a responsible 
position with a good salary and had laid by a neat 
little sum of money. 

Thus it would seem that persevering industry 
always brings success, while dissolute genius 
fares badly. A sky-rocket is beautiful in its 
perishing brilliancy, but its sparkle and glitter 
are but signals of danger from the down -falling 
stick. 

Success is rarely attained without severe and 
persistent effort. Do not think because you 
may have read of brilliant successes that seem 
to have been made by others without previous 
training, that you can follow in their footsteps, 
as if you had not common sense enough to 
know that no success can be attained in real 
life without downright hard work. 

Success is a ladder which must be climbed 
with steady steps and slow, one round at a time; 
and, although each successive round in its turn 
gives a measured success, the prize you aim at 
perches upon the topmost round. Faint not, 
weary not, be not discouraged if at times you 
slip down a round or two; climb again, and rest 



44 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

not satisfied anywhere between the bottom and 
topmost round. 

The efforts you put forth will be well repaid. 
We are taught to believe that a large part of the 
pleasure of life comes from anticipation, rather 
than realization; but I do not believe this to be 
altogether true — retrospection has its pleasures 
also — and contentment is the fruit of things well 
done. 



If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom 
friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, 
and hope your guardian genius. — Joseph Addison. 

Every step upward and onward rests on a difficulty overcome. 

H. W. Footb. 

All occasions were but steps for him to climb to fame by. Noth- 
ing was so hard but his valour overcame. — Sir Phttjp Sidney. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN LIFE. 



BY DAVID M. LADD, BOSTON, MASS. 



What is success in life, and what determines 
failure ? Was Jay Gould's life successful ? 
Was John Brown's life a failure ? One through 
speculation (which is gambling in its purest 
form) died leaving many millions to his rela- 
tives. Thinking of self alone, lacking in charit- 
able attributes, grasping and unscrupulous to 
excess, he was detested while living, and in 
death he was not mourned. The other died the 
grand death of a martyr, battling for what he 
believed, and what his executioners knew, to 
be right. He succumbed to overwhelming odds, 
and fearlessly sacrificed his own ambitious hopes 
that humanity in general should profit. There- 
fore, I contend that the amassing of millions for 
selfish ends alone is failure, and the slaughtered 



46 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

champion of the black man's rights lived a suc- 
cessful life. 

Many erroneously assume that only those 
fortunately born and reared ever actually achieve 
success. Statistics fail to substantiate such a 
theory. Our greatest statesmen, theologians, 
jurists, authors and poets have without excep- 
tion sprung like mushrooms from the poorer 
classes. True education is an assistant to suc- 
cess, but wealth will not ensure the gaining of 
knowledge. Consequently, in college as outside 
it, the sons of wealth start handicapped. Never 
having earned a dollar, and ignorant of its value 
except as a pleasure purchaser, they take up 
books as they would -a billiard cue, solely for 
amusement or because it may be the proper 
fashion. How different with the sons of poor 
parents who have less frequently the advantages 
of a college course! Often obliged to personally 
earn at farm and factory labor, the money 
needed for tuition and living expenses, they 
make study a business knowing that they must 
depend on the knowledge gained as a source of 
income. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN LIFE. 47 

Great wealth may be inherited by the fortu- 
nate, amassed by the lucky speculator, hoarded 
by the miserly, or stolen by the unscrupulous, 
but it is seldom found linked to true greatness, 
and it is still more seldom that an honest man 
dies a self-made millionaire. Great luck may 
strike in the territory of the spendthrift or the 
idiot and still fail to make their lives successful. 
Great success comes only to those who seek it 
and never to those whose deserts are beneath its 
merit. It can neither be donated, willed or 
purchased, and God be praised. 

Great Wealth, Great Luck and Great Success ; 
how vastly unlike and how frequently con- 
founded. Altogether too often do we hear the 
wealthy and fortunate quoted as examples of 
successful men. Lucky fortune, contented 
poverty — which is success? The laborer with 
his crust of bread, the idler at his banquet 
board — which is failure ? 

The truly successful man will ever be found 
contented with his lot, be it palace or hovel, 
pulpit or workshop, forum or factory. He is 
supremely happy in seeing others so. He is 



48 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

ever charitable, loving, forgetful of self, perse- 
vering, and ready at all times to commence at 
the bottom of the ladder anew if a mistake is 
made. He lends encouragement to those less 
fortunate, envies not those better situated, but 
strives ever to make life pleasant and comfort- 
able for all humanity. The world is benefitted 
by his having lived and his death is a grievious 
loss to the living. Such is my ideal of a suc- 
cess in life. 



The more we see of events, the less we believe in any fate or 
destiny except the destiny of character. — Phillips Brooks. 

A man undisciplined in philosophy blames others in matters in 
which he fares ill; one who begins to be disciplined blames himself; 
one who is disciplined, neither others nor himself. — Epictetus. 

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his 
work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise 
shall give him no peace, — Emerson. 



TRY AGAIN. 

No man should be discouraged because of past 
mistakes or failures; neither should he think 
that because of these mistakes he must forever 
suffer. Nature — and we are all her children — 
is just, but not vindictive; she will resent any 
and all wrongs, and will demand full restitu- 
tion, and have it, too, but once the debt is paid 
she asks no more. 

This is your hope. If you have done wrong, 
you surely have suffered; if you have made 
mistakes, you have paid the penalty; if you 
have failed in an undertaking, your disappoint- 
ment has been keen, and for a time you may 
have felt a degree of discouragement; but do 
not allow these things to deter you from making 
other and more effective efforts. Profiting by 
your former mistakes, you stand a much better 
chance for success in your next attempt. Try 



50 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

again. Make a new impression and follow it up 
with others until the old wounds and scars are 
covered from sight. Good men will respect 
your resolutions and efforts and will welcome 
you again to the place you lost. A few narrow- 
minded, insignificant people, who are perhaps 
envious of your ability or natural worth, may 
sneer at you for a while and taunt you of the 
past, but persevere in what you know to be 
right. At the worst they can do you no per- 
manent injury and will soon see that you are in 
earnest and credit you for it. 

I was at a beach one day where many people 
were gathered. Old Ocean was in her gentlest 
mood and had paved the sands as smooth as a 
mirror, over which the waves curled and broke 
as if in play. But the people had little regard 
for its beauty and defaced it in many ways. The 
children dug holes; the wheels of carriages 
made deep ruts; refuse was thrown on the 
white sand, and a far different appearance was 
presented in the evening than when I saw it by 
morning light. Next morning I was there at 
break of day. Old Ocean had been at work all 



TRY AGAIN. 51 

night — the holes were filled, the ruts effaced, 
the refuse buried or swept from sight— and the 
same beautiful, peaceful appearance was there 
again. 

It is thus with our lives. If we seek wisdom 
and make its lesson practical, we can, in time, 
overcome and rectify the mistakes of former 
years. 



A man has mistaken the secret of human life who does not look 
for greatness in the midst of folly, for sparks of nobility in the 
midst of meaness; and the well-poised mind distributes with im- 
partiality the praise and the blame. — Shorthouse. 

Small service is a service while it lasts, 
Of friends, however humble, harm not one. 

The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 

Protects the lingering dew-drops from the sun. 

— Wordsworth. 



WHAT THE WORLD OWES US. 

A man possessing health, strength, ability, 
ideas, or anything else that he can use for the 
benefit of the world, is a debtor to the world in 
such measure as he fails to utilize his talents for 
its benefit. The idea that the world "owes a 
living" to anybody is an error that can bring 
nothing but disappointment to those who be- 
lieve it. 

The fact is, the world owes every man a 
chance to make a living, and is always willing 
to give a fair return for services rendered and is 
anxious to secure such services. It does not, 
however, pay for work until it is done. This is 
right and as it should be. We ourselves enjoy 
in proportion to the enjoyment we render others, 
and we rob ourselves when we withhold from 
others that which we have to spare. 

We cannot always render benefits to those 
from whom we receive them, but we can and 



WHAT THE WORLD OWES US. 53 

should render them to somebody, with the same 
grace with which we pay any other honest debt. 
This may not agree with the ideas or wishes of 
those who desire to get " something for nothing;" 
but those who realize that success is not a thing of 
an hour or a day, will understand my meaning. 

It is not the ambition of the author to cater 
to the wishes of anyone, but to give as he un- 
derstands them, and as the wisest men have 
penned them, the rules that govern all true 
success. 

Why should we deceive ourselves? What 
can we hope to gain by so doing ? 

We may as well look at the matter as it is and 
begin right. But if we find we have begun 
wrong, stop short, start again and seek to profit 
by our former mistakes. 

The world owes us whatever it has failed to 
pay for actual services rendered, nothing more, 
nothing less. It is, however, a willing paymas- 
ter; its assets are large, its liabilities small, its 
capital unlimited. It issues letters of credit 
payable at sight to all its creditors, and it never 
allows its business paper to go to protest. 



54 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

With the idler, the spendthrift and the pro- 
crastinator the world is always at odds; but 
with the ambitious, the industrious, the perse- 
vering and the honest, the world keeps an open 
account, and both the individual and the com- 
munity are benefitted thereby. 

It is only by using the talents committed to 
our care that we can make the world our debtor, 
gain the good will of our fellows and establish 
character, and make the world and ourselves 
better because we are living in it. And thus 
living in the world we may rightfully claim to 
be a useful part of it. 



While there is hope left, let not the weakness of sorrow make 
the strength of it languish ; take comfort, and good success will 
follow. — Sm Philip Sidney.. 

The one secret of life and development is not to devise and place, 
but to fall in with the forces at work — to do every moment's duty 
right. — George McDonald. 



THE ACCUMULATION OF MONEY. 

The accumulation of money ought not to be the 
chief end of life. True, money is essential in 
every business, profession and calling, and the 
possession of it is the end we all work for; but 
it ought not to be the only end. The satisfac- 
tion and the happiness that comes from well- 
directed business effort are as much a part of 
one's success as is the money gotten by such 
effort. It is wise to save, to keep one's capital 
unimpaired, and to add to it as his business 
develops — and thus developing, it will require 
such increase. To husband one's resources is a 
duty. To save is to gain. But for all this, the 
use of money is all the advantage there is in 
having money. The man who derives no pleas- 
ure from his business save from the harvest of 
dollars he reaps from it, achieves at best only a 
barren success. For, while his mercantile rating 



56 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

may be high, it gives him a poor equivalent 
for the loss of those social joys and friendships 
which in so large a measure add happiness to 
success. 

The miser doubtless has a pleasure all his own 
in computing and gloating over his much loved 
gold, but weighing that pleasure in the balances 
against the good which his hoarded store might 
have given him, it " kicks the beam" every 
time. "What is a man profited, if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul?" speaks 
the Master, and — although it is no part of the 
author's plan to preach — the man who lays him- 
self down to his last, long sleep with no assets 
to his credit but the gold he so grudgingly 
leaves behind him, will on awaking find, in the 
words of the preacher, that "all is vanity and 
vexation of spirit" in the new life which he 
is entering upon, as it was in the life that he 
left behind him. 

Consider now this question of success from 
the other extreme — that of the spendthrift. 
"Fools make feasts and wise men eat them." 
No business, no matter how sound it may ap- 



THE ACCUMULATION OF MONEY. 57 

parently be, will long stand an inroad that saps 
its revenue. And fortune, however large, will 
spread its wings and fly away before the re- 
peated attacks of unlimited appetite for luxuri- 
ous living. The spendthrift is generally a man 
of artificial wants, and his follies are always 
expensive. He is always taking away from his 
capital and never adding anything to it, until, 
as in the case of the proverbial "meal tub," 
there comes a time when he reaches the bottom. 
Only "when the well is dry" does he begin to 
know the "worth of water." True, he has been 
a sort of success — a waning success, shall I call 
it ? Is there such a thing ? In his day he was 
counted a good fellow; he numbered his friends 
by scores; he stood well at his club; he "scat- 
tered abroad" with a lavish hand; his social 
standing was high; he was the pet of the gen- 
tler sex and the prince of men about town. 
But now, "how are the mighty fallen!" Who 
thinks or cares anything for the bankrupt spend- 
thrift? What boots his former liberality and 
good fellowship? To whom shall he turn to 
eke out even the most scanty fare ? Will his 



58 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

old-time associates come to his aid ? They may 
grudgingly dole out an occasional pittance. 
But for him the end has come. He is the sad- 
dest of all animate things — a leaf turned down, 
a back number, one of the "has beens." He 
never knew the value of money until he lost all 
he had, but well does he know its value now; 
no one knows better than he the force of the 
adage: "He that goes a-borrowing, goes a- 
sorrowing." 

I have brought these opposing types of men 
before you, my reader, not because I think many 
of you are either misers or spendthrifts, but in 
the hope that if you have tendencies in either 
direction, you will switch off these well worn 
tracks ere you find yourself going with such 
fearful speed that to slow up is impossible. 
There is a safe road for you to travel, it has a 
firm road-bed, a clear track and pleasant sta- 
tions all along the way, and as you pass them 
you read the names: Honesty, Industry, Energy, 
Perseverance, Economy, Regularity, Patience, 
Liberality, Success. 



RISE HIGHER. 



Soul of mine, 
Would thou choose for life a motto half divine ? 
Let this be your guard and guide 
Through the future reaching wide, 
Whether good or ill betide. 
Rise higher. 

From the mire, 
Where the masses blindly grovel, rise higher 
From the slavish love of gold, 
From the justice bought and sold, 
From the narrow rules of old, 
Rise higher. 



Let each care 
Lift thee upward to a higher, purer air, 
Then let fortune do her worst, 
Whether fate has blessed or cursed, 
Little matter, if thou first 
Rise higher. 

And at last 
When thy sorrows and temptations all are past, 
And the great death angel brings 
Summons from the King of Kings, 
Thou shalt still, on angel's wings, 
Rise higher. 

— Selected. 



HOW TO SUCCEED. 



(Extract from a Lecture by Dr. Lyman Abbott.) 



The elements of success are: A good body, a 
well-equipped mind, a purpose in life, a proper 
place in life and economy of time. 

"Know thyself." This is important if you 
wish to succeed. The body is the house of the 
mind, it is the instrument with which to push 
our way through life, and in order to give it 
proper care we must understand its construc- 
tion and capabilities. 

"Keep your soul on top." So long as your 
body is subject to your mind you are safe; but 
once allow your appetite or passion to get the 
upper hand, and you will be in trouble and on 
the road to failure. 

Cultivate the companionship of good people — 
better than yourself, if possible. If you have a 



HOW TO SUCCEED. 61 

friend who is of no help to you, and you feel 
convinced that you cannot elevate him — drop 
him; the sooner such a friendship is sundered 
the better it will be for all concerned. 

Spend less than you earn — and don't spend 
it until after it is earned. Debt is a hard bur- 
den to carry. 

Wealth is not success, fame is not success. 
True success is not to have, but to be — to do. 
A man should not be judged by the coat he 
wears or the house he lives in any more than a 
canary by the cage he sings in, or the horse by 
the trappings he carries. 

The man who goes out in life expecting to 
win his way by strength and muscle, will find 
that he is competing with the forces of nature, 
and that an intelligent, well-equipped mind 
must be there to guide and direct the strength 
or he will accomplish little. 

Perseverance, push, pluck, vigor — put these 
elements into all you think, say or do. 

Be courageous, be true. 



LUCK. 

Felix Adler once said: "Success is the result 
of intelligence and industry, plus opportunity 
and good luck." 

This may apply, and probably does apply, to 
the acquisition of money and fame. A man may 
be suddenly made rich by some fortunate cir- 
cumstance, or his name may be sounded all 
over the land, but this is not success. It may 
well be called "luck," it's nothing more, it's 
not success. Money may take unto itself wings 
and fly away, then where is the success of its 
former possessor? And what is honor, what 
is fame but the "empty sound of a long-lost 
name." 

Success is the result of labor and application; 
perseverance and industry are the means of at- 
taining it, and it cannot be accomplished with- 
out them. 



LUCK. 63 

Luck is not success, it is not a material ele- 
ment of success, but add another letter and 
make it "pluck" and you have one of the 
strongest elements of success. 

To attain success — true success — you must 
be interested in your work. The pleasure of its 
pursuit has always been its best reward. 



Frank Harrison, in his Family Magazine, says: " I would urge 
all ambitious young men to always study the methods of men of 
success; to preserve always a great respect for these men. By 
doing this you will learn something of the way to climb the ladder 
of success. Understand me, in speaking of successful men I mean 
men who have become eminent through honor and probity. I 
don't call a man successful just because he has acquired great 
wealth. Indeed, many so-called successful men have nothing to 
commend them but their wealth, and in most cases this wealth 
has been acquired by questionable methods. Acquiring great 
wealth means only successful money gathering. A man may be 
a failure as a moral man, yet be very successful in acquiring 
money. I would not advise young men to emulate or study the 
methods of such a man." 



ONE MAN'S EXPERIENCE. 

A man who for many years was a successful 
merchant, and at one time worth a large fortune, 
but who, by mistakes and adversity, became 
reduced to almost the last extremity, when 
asked to state what in his opinion were the 
three things that contributed most largely to 
make a successful life, and the three things 
that were the most fruitful causes of failure, 
said: 

"After an experience of fifty years of money- 
making, pleasure, poverty and sorrow, I believe 
the cardinal principles of success to be — 

First. Steadfast devotion to the highest truth 
and goodness you can conceive of. 

Second. Avoidance of all excesses — even the 
appearance of them — for, though they be born 
in cheerfulness and reared in good feeling, they 
expose you to criticism. 



ONE MAN'S EXPERIENCE 65 

Third. Let your life be one of charity, blended 
with a knowledge of duty to mankind, governed 
by a judgment that will try and correct wrong 
in yourself as well as in others. Be faithful to 
truth and your God first — and to friends after- 
wards. This kind of a life must produce re- 
sults as gratifying to the world as to yourself. 

On the other hand, failure will not be avoided 
by the following: 

First. Blind belief that well preserved cheer- 
fulness is virtue. 

Second. By believing that you can ignore 
public opinion and arbitrarily do as you please. 

Third. By making promises — however sincere 
— which a little reflection would show your in- 
ability to keep, or encouraging hopes in others 
that cannot be realized. For a host of enemies 
must then arise, and 

1 Everybody is wiser than anybody,' " 



66 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 



"He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it; and he 
that hateth suretyship, is sure." 

Do not depend on promises made by strangers. 
They almost invariably prove false; it is unwise 
to build any hopes on their being fulfilled. 
The very fact of a stranger asking you for 
money or favors proves that he is not what he 
represents himself to be, else he could get the 
desired money or favor from those acquainted 
with him. 



"The love of ease, luxury, and that sort of thing is the mill- 
stone around many a man's neck, which keeps him from acquiring 
money which would enable him to procure those very things. 
Both toil and hardship must be endured by most men before they 
can indulge in ease and luxury." 



IDEAS OF P. T. BARNUM. 

Some years ago the author called upon the 
late P. T. Barnum, at his residence in Bridge- 
port, Conn., and in his conversation Mr. Barnum 
said substantially as follows: 

"In order to succeed in life you must engage 
in the business or profession for which you are 
best fitted by nature. 

Select the right location and then practice 
perseverance and economy. 

Depend upon your own personal exertions. 

Don't get above your business. 

Don't scatter your powers. 

Be systematic. 

Read the newspapers; keep informed on the 
doings of the world. 

Beware of "outside" speculations. Stick to 
your business. 

Don't indorse another man's paper without 
securety. 



68 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Advertise your business, but remember that, 
like learning, "a little is a dangerous thing;" 
you must keep at it or lose the money already 
invested. 

Be polite and kind. 

Don't tell your business secrets or talk much 
about your affairs. 

Preserve your integrity. Make money honest- 
ly, not otherwise, remembering that to get rich 
is not always equivalent to being successful. 

Be charitable. It is a duty to be charitable 
and it should be a pleasure. The best kind of 
charity is to help those who are trying to help 
themselves. Promiscuous alms-giving is bad 
in every way. But don't fall into the idea that 
some persons practice, of giving a prayer in- 
stead of a potato, and a benediction instead of. 
bread, to the hungry. It is easier to make 
Christians with full stomachs than with empty. 



" He that wants money, means and content, is without three 
good friends. ' ' — Shakespe ABE. 



ME. BUNTING'S OPINION. 

Mr. Chas. A. Bunting, who for many years has 
been the manager of the New York Christian 
Home for Intemperate Men, and who, as such, 
has had an excellent opportunity for coming 
in personal contact with some of the most gi- 
gantic failures of this generation, when asked 
by the author to name the elements of suc- 
cess and causes of failure, wrote: 

ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 

First. Obedience to God's commands. 

Second. Proper recognition of our duty to 
our fellow -men. 

Third. Our duty to ourselves insures success. 
If we are born in poverty it matters little as to 
our future; our aim in life should be to possess 
the essentials which are these: 

A principle that will never allow us to be 
found doing a thing that we could not ask 



70 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

God's blessing upon. A fixed determination to 
apply ourselves to anything we have proposed 
doing. Application, perseverance and energy 
are requisite for true success. 

"Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, 
serving the Lord." 

On these are based true success and pros- 
perity. "Success is wealth of some kind, and 
people who have certain qualities for getting a 
living may be said to have wealth. " 

CAUSES OF FAILURE ARE: 

First. Disobedience and utter disregard of 
well known commands of God. 

Second. Through overreaching or covetous- 
ness and the like, we lose all freedom and are 
constantly to be found in worse than Egyptian 
bondage. 

Third. Failure to recognize God in all our 
ways, acts and dealings is sure to bring ill- 
success, disaster and ruin. 



Life is real, life is earnest; 

And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

Was not spoke a of the soul. 

# * * 

In the world's broad field of battle, 

In the bivouac of life; 
Be not like dumb driven cattle, 

Be a hero in the strife. 

* # * 

Lives of great men all remind us, 
We can make our lives sublime; 

And departing leave behind us, 
Foot prints on the sands of time ; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
Seeing, shall take heart again. 

* * * 

Let us then be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor and to wait. 



-Longfellow, 



RULES OF LIFE. 



STEPPING STONES THAT LEAD TO SUCCESS AND 
HAPPINESS. 



(From the N. Y. Evening Telegram.) 

The father of Columbus was a weaver; of 
Franklin, a soap boiler; of Shakespeare, a wool- 
harder; of Burns, a ploughman. Lincoln was a 
rail -splitter. Grant was a tanner. Garfield was 
& tow -boy on a canal. 

The most of our successful men began life 
-without a dollar, declares the Evangel. You can 
?do the same. Here are a dozen rules for getting 
;on in the world: 

1. Be honest. Dishonesty seldom makes one 
3*ich, and when it does, riches are a curse. 
'There is no such thing as dishonest success. 

2. Work. The world is not going to pay you 
lor loafing. Ninety per cent, of what men call 
genius is only talent for hard work. 

3. Enter into that business or trade which 



RULES OF LIFE" 73 

you like best and for which nature seems to 
have fitted you, provided it is honorable. 

4. Be independent. Do not lean on others to 
do your thinking for you or to conquer your 
difficulties. 

5. Be conscientious in the discharge of every 
duty. Do your work thoroughly. No boy can 
rise who slights his work. 

6. Don't try to begin at the top. Begin at the 
bottom and you will have a chance to rise, and 
will be surer to reach the top sometime. 

7. Trust in nothing but God and hard work. 
Inscribe on your banner, *' Luck is a fool; pluck 
is a hero." 

8. Be punctual. Keep your appointments. 
Be there a minute before the time if you have 
to lose your dinner to do it. 

9. Be polite. Every smile, every genteel bow 
is money in your pocket. 

10. Be generous. Meanness makes enemies 
and breeds distrust. 

11. Spend less than your earn. Do not run 
in debt. Watch the little leaks and you can 
live on your salary. 



74 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

12. Make all the money you can honestly, 
do all the good you can with it while you live 
and be your own executor. 



Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day 
Which from the night shall drive thy peace away. 
In months of sun so live that months of rain 
Shall still be happy. Evermore restrain 
Evil and cherish good, so shall there be 
Another and a happier life for thee. — Whittter. 

" Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

•' In order to accomplish anything in this world you must have 
a purpose and an object— the one to direct, the other to attract." 



MAXIMS OF BARON ROTHSCHILD. 

The elder Baron Rothschild had the walls of 
his bank placarded with the following curious 
maxims : 

Carefully examine every detail of your busi- 
ness. 

Be prompt in everything. 

Take time to consider, but decide positively. 

Dare to go forward. 

Bear troubles patiently. 

Be brave in the struggle of life. 

Maintain your integrity as a sacred thing. 

Never tell business lies. 

Make no useless acquaintances. 

Never appear something more than you are. 

Pay your debts promptly. 

Shun strong liquor. 

Employ your time well. 

Do not reckon upon chance. 



76 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Be polite to everybody 
Never be discouraged. 

Then work hard and you will be sure to suc- 
ceed. 



" We live in the future. Even the happiness of the present is 
mostly of that delightful discontent which the hope of better 
things inspires." — Holland. 

There is no man suddenly either excellently good or exceedingly 
evil, but grows either as he holds himself up in virtue, or lets 
himself slide to viciousness. Sm Philip Sidney. 



Let us distrust the work that is not enjoyed, and to enjoy it, 
we must do it steadily, but not overdo it, and must not despise 
food and sleep, and exercise and rest, and holidays. 

— Margaret Sewell. 



FOR YOUNG BUSINESS MEN. 



BY K. L. WINKLEY, BOSTON, MASS, 



(From Frank Harrison's Family Magazine.) 

The temptations which assail young men ii* 
business life seem to be naturally divided into 
two main groups, each having its accompany- 
ing evils or evil tendencies, resulting from the> 
complete or partial yielding to said temptation. 
One of these divisions applies to men of leth- 
argic temperament, the other to those of great 
activity. 

One may be too slack in the performance of 
his duties, deeming it wiser to save himself by 
doing nothing beyond what is expected of him 9 
or even falling a little short of what is required, 
A person of this kind is generally dissatisfied 
both with himself^ and his occupation. In ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred he will be induced 
to neglect more and more present duties and 



78 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

search for a more easy and rapid way to wealth 
and prosperity, turning with eager hope to the 
marginal transactions in stocks, or even to the 
fortunes of cards and other gambling devices. 
We know full well what the inevitable is in such 
cases. The associations formed and the habits 
contracted in pursuits of this character serve 
only to cultivate the greed<of gain until, in many 
cases, honor is throwm to the winds and the ac- 
cumulation of wealth becomes the sole end and 
aim of life. Or, if the speculations are unfor- 
tunate, the young fellow drowns his disappoint- 
ment in dissipation, and what might have been 
a brilliant career is thus ended in disgrace and 
financial ruin. 

On the other hand a young man may be too 
energetic. 

It is well to start out in life with enthusiasm 
and, if possible, with a definite end in view. 
Regular and well directed labor will, as a rule, 
bring success. However, the tendency is that 
as success approaches, or is realized, the stimu- 
lus thus gained will be too great. Work then 
becomes a fascination, and a man beginning 



FOR YOUNG BUSINESS MEN, 79 

with the very best prospects may become so 
enthusiastic that side issues will tempt him into 
investments and business enterprises concern- 
ing the details and management of which he is 
completely ignorant, and before he comprehends 
what has been undertaken his position is more 
arduous than he had anticipated. Then comes 
that terrible mental strain which so frequently 
ends in nervous prostration and physical decay. 
This result in the case of the energetic man 
seems almost as lamentable as that of the lazy 
fellow. 

Here then are the two extremes, and if re- 
medies can be applied to them the medium 
class will take care of itself. 

Mental culture is one of the most effectual 
antidotes for these evils. The man who can 
turn from the cares of business to the pleasures 
of literature is well armed against many tempt- 
ations. 

We must have amusement, we need diver- 
sion. If the recreation be appropriate our lives 
are both brightened and purified. And this 
brings us to the question — what is recreation, 



80 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

what is amusement ? We can easily agree on 
the answer, "a temporary change of occupa- 
tion." To the close student it is refreshing to 
tramp the fields or cultivate the garden; a trip 
to town gives a like joy to the farmer, the 
Banker Poet Steadman turns with pleasure from 
his finance to his literary pursuits, and vice 
versa, each one strengthening him for and aiding 
him in the other. 

Jay Gould, a man whom the world looked 
upon as entirely devoted to business, was an 
authority on floriculture, and in its study and 
pursuits his mind was kept from constant 
thought in the old and deepening ruts of daily 
barter. 

Young men should concentrate their energies; 
accomplish one object before aiming at another. 
Be conservative. 

Employers can aid materially in developing 
young men in the right way. The hope of re- 
ward has a far more potent influence than the 
fear of punishment. The man who is just to 
those in his employ is a philanthropist in the 
truest sense of the word: all who come in 



FOR YOUNG BUSINESS MEN. 81 

contact with him become strong friends and 
supporters, and by a sort of reflex action, he, 
too, develops into a wiser and better man. 

(Mr. Winkley, the writer of the above, is private secretary to 
Col. Albert A. Pope, of Boston, and for years was with the late 
Cyrus W. Field.) 



Not to do in our days just what our fathers did long ago, but 
to live as truly up to our light as our fathers lived up to theirs — 
that is what it is to be worthy of our fathers. — Phillips Brooks. 

Economy no more means saving money than it means spending 
money. It means, spending or saving, whether money or any- 
thing else, to the best possible advantage. — Ruskin. 



Man who man would be 
Must rule the Empire of himself; in it 
Must be supreme , establishing his throne 
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 

— Shelly. 



WHICH CLASS ARE YOU IN? 

There are at least three kinds of people in this 
world — those who do not know how to succeed, 
and do not think it worth their trouble to learn ; 
those who know how but fail because they do 
not live up to their knowledge, and those who 
succeed because they practice the principles 
which they know to be consistent with the end 
they have in view. 

I have a young friend who is engaged in busi- 
ness on his own account. He is a good fellow, 
does not drink intoxicants of any kind, is not 
addicted to any of the vices which ruin so many 
of our young men; he has a wife and a pleasant 
home, makes friends readily and loses very few; 
he has youth and more than ordinary good 
health; he possesses education sufficient to 
carry on the business in which he is engaged 
and has an opportunity to acquire more, if 



WHAT CLASS ARE YOU IN 88 

he desired, and yet he is not a success. Why? 
Well, I asked him one day, had quite a talk 
with him concerning the causes of the successes 
and failures in life, and he said: "It is no use 
to talk to me about the way to make my busi- 
ness pay; it is no use for me to read books tell- 
ing how others succeed. I know how. I know 
that if I had lived up to my knowledge during 
the past year that I could have increased 
my business and laid aside a snug sum of money. 
But I didn't do it." Now this young friend of 
mine is in debt, and, at times, it worries him. 
He knows how to succeed, but he don't use his 
knowledge; he is a failure, and according to the 
eternal fitness of things he will be until such 
time as he applies his knowledge to practical 
use. 

The mere possession of knowledge amounts 
to but little, it is the use we make of it that 
carries us forward. Good resolutions not backed 
by the power of the will are useless, but when 
so backed they possess a potent power. The 
man who waits for a specially favorable time to 
present itself for a start in business, loses valu- 



84 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

able time, and when the opportune moment 
for which he has waited does arrive, the chances 
are that he will not recognize it, but if he does, 
he will find himself to be but a follower where 
he easily might have been a leader. 

In every business and profession there are 
many things that.are disagreeable; and because 
they are disagreeable they are too frequently 
put off until the best time for doing them has 
gone by. The most irksome labor is often the 
best because most fruitful of discipline and pre- 
paration for future labors, and the wise man is 
he who overcomes each obstacle as it presents 
itself, leaving no task incomplete, and putting 
off until the morrow nothing that can be done 
to-day. 

Affairs in the present age are conducted in a 
way and with a rush that is not conducive to 
the progress of the procrastinator. It is the 
man who, prepared for the struggle before him, 
is ever on the alert for an opportunity, and who 
takes prompt and decisive action when the 
favorable time comes, that gains his object. 

A faint heart never yet won anything worth 



WHAT CLASS ARE YOU IN 85 

having. The most valuable things are ordin- 
arily the most difficult to obtain — even the rose 
is guarded by thorns. 

The road to success is not an easy one, how- 
ever much it may appear to be as one contem- 
plates the position of those who have already 
won their laurels; but the right start being 
made, the requisite knowledge obtained, and 
possessed of the courage and determination 
necessary to carry it through, the worst is over. 
After this, each effort brings strength to the 
succeeding one, and as we begin to realize that 
each step in the right direction brings us nearer 
the completion of our hopes; the satisfaction 
we feel more than compensates for the labor 
and self-denial it cost us at the start. 



Friendship is the best college character can graduate from. Be- 
lieve in it, seek for it, and when it comes keep it as sacredly as 
love.— Louisa Alcott. 

Let not the grass grow on the path of friendship. — Indian 
Proverb. 



AMBITION. 

Ambition is said to be a spur to success, but 
it is questionable, however, if it is an absolute 
essential to success. It depends on what is 
meant by ambition. If it is that governing and 
ruling passion which forces its possessor to the 
front, regardless of who he trips up or knocks 
down; who he impoverishes, or how much 
misery he makes others suffer, that he may 
gain his end, then it is a misnomer, and what he 
or others may call ambition, is but an intense 
selfishness and utter unscrupulousness; but if, 
on the other hand, it is a drive -wheel which 
makes one a first-rate man of business, careful 
and considerate of the rights of others, yet just 
and persistent in demanding his own; ever 
keeping his eye fixed upon the topmost round 
of the ladder, which he ultimately means to 
reach, yet putting nothing in the way of any 



AMBITION. 87 

who are climbing side by side with him, such 
an ambition is laudable, while an inordinate 
ambition is damnable. 

These opposing types of ambition may be 
happily illustrated by contrasting that of Na- 
poleon with that of Wellington. Napoleon's 
ambition was a demon insatiate, which com- 
passed at last, not only his own ruin, but the 
ruin of France also, which was left a prey to 
anarchy. He knew no such word as "I can't," 
"Impossible," or "Fail." "Learn," "Try," 
"Do," were his working mottoes, and his 
favorite maxim was: "The truest wisdom is a 
resolute determination." Before him rulers, 
and the nations they governed, went down in 
rapid succession. His whole career was but an 
example of what a powerful and unscrupulous 
will could accomplish, and his miserable death 
at St. Helena taught the lesson that power 
without beneficence, and knowledge without 
goodness, is not only fatal to its possessor, but 
is an incarnate principle of evil. 

Wellington, on the other hand, while not less 
resolute, firm, persistent and determined, was 



88 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

yet conscientious, self-sacrificing and thorough- 
ly patriotic. He fought not for glory, and his 
patience and resolution — which carried him 
through the gigantic difficulties of his many 
campaigns and brought him out a conqueror — 
are among the sublimest things to be found in 
history. As a general he was fully Napoleon's 
equal; as a statesman he was as wise as Crom- 
well, and as a patriot as pure as our own 
Washington. 

His great character stands in our history un- 
tarnished by selfishness, by unscrupulousness, 
by avarice, or any baser passion. Well might 
the Poet Laureate sing of him — 

" Oh, good gray head which all men knew; 

Oh, voice from which their omens all men drew; 
Oh, fallen at length, that tower of strength 

That stood four square, to all the winds that blew." 



When shall we learn that with all true men it is not what they 
intend to do, but it is what the qualities of their nature bind them 
to do, that determines their career? — Philijps Brooks. 

The purest treasure mortal times afford 

Is spotless reputation, that away, 

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. 

Richard II. 



GAMBLING. 

A rock upon which tens of thousands of men 
go to pieces every year is gambling. The card 
table, the pool room, the race track, dice, bil- 
liards, stock speculation or whatever device or 
game you affect, carried to its legitimate con- 
clusion means ruin in the end. Doubtless all 
gamblers are more or less successful at times, 
but it is a transient, fleeting success, without 
merit and always demoralizing. 

Just pause a minute as you read, and see if 
you can recall one single individual among all 
your acquaintance who ever made a competency 
— and held on to it — by gambling. Did you 
ever know one habitual gambler, no matter 
whether he gambled with dice, cards, horses, 
or dabbled in stock margins who died leaving 
his family, if he had one, in comfortable cir- 
cumstances? And don't you know scores of 



90 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

men who have squandered fortunes and let 
themselves down to the gutter's level, victims 
of that insatiable monster — "luck?" 

Gambling, drinking and lust — three kindred 
evils — are to-day and always have been, the 
Molochs of civilization. 

Pause in time. You are not one whit smarter 
or one whit more lucky than hundreds of thou- 
sands of men who have already traveled this 
rocky road; and if you were — if you were the 
exception to prove the rule — what would it prof- 
it you? Your success would be the scorn of 
every honest man, for it would mean ruin to some 
other man or men. Success so meanly gained, 
like dead sea fruit, would crumble to dust be- 
fore your eyes. 



Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Strong 
men believe in cause and effect. Emerson. 

Saint-seducing gold. — Romeo and Juliet. 

How quickly nature falls into revolt, 
When gold becomes her object I 

—Henry IV. 



CHASTITY. 

Solomon said: "For the lips of a strange wo- 
man drop as a honeycomb, and her month is 
smoother than oil: 

Bnt her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as 
a two-edged sword." 

"Her feet go down to death; her steps take 
hold on hell." 

"Remove thy way far from her, and come not 
nigh the door of her house." 

Chastity is one of the cardinal virtues. Per- 
haps there has never been a time since we be- 
came a nation when the enticements towards 
nnchastity were greater than at the present 
day. This is especially true in the great cities. 
It cannot be put down as an axiomatic truth 
that an unchaste man will not succeed in what- 



dd THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

ever business he undertakes, but I think it is 
true that whatever success he gains will not 
bring him that happiness which it would afford 
were he morally clean. There is a success of 
character as well as a success in business, and 
the voluptuary is sure to fail of moral success. 
This subject of chastity is a very delicate one 
to put in cold type, and so delicate that it is 
rarely mentioned from pulpit or rostrum except 
in the most guarded way. Abridging, bound- 
ing, or if possible, abolishing what is called the 
social evil, is the most stupendous problem that 
awaits the solution of the pure minded men of 
to-day. The majority of us believe it cannot 
and will not be entirely wiped out this side of 
the millennium, and large numbers profess to 
believe social evil to be necessary evil. Be 
this as it may, you, individually, with an aim 
in life, owe it to yourself to be pure both in 
mind and body. And unchastity will vanish 
from among men only when everyone has 
learned to be personally clean. 



THE FOOL'S PRAYER. 

The royal feast was done. The King 
Sought some new sport to banish care; 

And to his Jester cried: •' Sir Fool, 
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer! ' 

The Jester doffed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before ; 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 

He bowed his head and bent his knee 

Upon the monarch's silken stool; 
His pleading voice arose: " O Lord, 

Be merciful to me — a Fool! 
'T is not by guilt the onward sweep 

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 
'T is by our follies that so long 

We hold the earth from heaven away. 
These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 

Go crushing blossoms without end ; 
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 

Among the beart-strings of a friend. 
Our faults no tenderness should ask; 

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all 
But for our blunders! Oh! in shame 

Before the eyes of Heaven we fall! 

Earth bears no balsam for mistakes. 

Men crown the knave and scourge the fool ! 
They did his will. But, then, oh Lord, 

Be merciful to me— a Fool !" 

The room was hushed. In silence rose 
The King, and sought his gardens cool. 

He walked apart, and murmured low : 
"Be merciful to me— a Fool !"— Selected, 



CAUSES OF FAILURE. 

The cause of numerous failures in life, both 
from a business and social standpoint, is not, in 
my opinion, lack of ability to succeed so much 
as lack of exercising our plain, ordinary com- 
mon sense. Everything that occurs in life is 
the result of something which has previously 
taken place. Cause and effect is not a new- 
idea; it is as old as the hills and stands beyond 
question or controversy. We must eventually 
abide by the result of our deeds, be they good 
or bad; we cannot have it otherwise if we 
would. We expect to reap, else we would not 
sow. 

No act which we can do is so trivial, no word 
spoken so small, no thought so unimportant 
that its effect will not be felt. The impulsive 
man is rarely a successful one, and the success 
he does attain must necessarily be abbreviated 



CAtJSES OF FAILURE. 01 

or short-lived, as compared with that of the 
man whose acts are based upon sound reason- 
ing. Impulses are often vagaries born from un- 
healthy excitement and are seldom safe to 
follow. Felix Adler, in one of his lectures has 
gone so far as to say that a man never has a 
good impulse. By this he evidently means that 
it can only be after mature deliberation upon 
the ultimate result of an act, that a man could 
be justified in committing an act. If we but 
had a proper appreciation of this truth, and be- 
fore embarking in an enterprise, before assum- 
ing a liability, before taking a step in life would 
consider the result and its consequences, the 
history of our lives would have less mistakes 
recorded and its last chapter would more fre- 
quently note a rounded success instead of a 
wasted life. 

Many suppose that social success and happi- 
ness depends on wealth and what it will pur- 
chase or procure, but nothing could be more 
erroneous. Happiness comes from within, 
rather than from external surroundings; and, 
moreover, a happy frame of mind does much 



96 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

toward making our surroundings what we de- 
sire them to be, while discontentment will em- 
bitter a life that contains every other essential 
of happiness. The one who waits for great 
wealth to make him happy, not infrequently 
waits in vain. Discontent does much to defeat 
plans for securing wealth that could otherwise 
be carried to successful completion; as cold 
contracts and congeals all with which it comes 
in contact, so a discontented, embittered mind 
acts on those around us. And as a ray of sun- 
light illumines the deepest, darkest crevice 
that it reaches, so a genial, happy disposition 
brightens, not only our own pathway, but lends 
cheer to those with whom we associate as well. 
Men successful in business affairs, managers of 
large enterprises, and leaders of men in every 
walk of life are usually those with an abund- 
ance of good nature. These men attract and 
create friendships and thus open opportunities 
for themselves which the discontented, pes- 
simistic grumbler can never have. 

Great executive ability, or a faculty for mak- 
ing money, will not bring success to its pos- 



CAUSES OF FAILURE. 97 

sessor unless he adheres to certain well-defined 
principles. James Fisk, Jr., had this faculty 
developed to a remarkable degree, yet his life 
was a failure and his death untimely. 

The man who chooses the business or occupa- 
tion for which he is best suited, who masters 
its every detail and then does his best to de- 
velope it, and takes pleasure in so doing; who 
does his duty by himself and his fellow-men, 
and who keeps free from debt and does no act 
which he wcmld fear to have known, will be a 
success in life, even if he fails to leave a fortune 
behind him. 



Disraeli the elder held that the secret of success consisted of 
being master of your subject, and such mastery is attainable only 
through continuous application and study. 

My panacea for most troubles is work. Try it, and I think you 
will find that it will promote that healthfulness of spirit which 
is the life of life. I. Alcott. 



WORDS OF WISDOM. 

"Knowledge in the head is money in the pocket." 
"Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not." 
11 He that is faithful over a few things shall be ruler over many." 
Do the duty faithfully and well that presents itself to-day. 

" Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common 
sense." 

" There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room 
for many." 

"We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we 
think we do." 

Fortune is a coy dame and must be courted with constant and 
unremitting devotion. 

Intelligent application and persistent effort cannot fail to bring 
you near your heart's desire. 

"Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom, and 
with all thy getting, get understanding." 

You will advance no faster by neglecting the duty of to-day, 
no matter how arduous or disagreeable it may be. 

Habit is habit, and not be flung out of the window by any man, 
but coaxed down stairs a step at a time. —Mark Twain 



WORDS OF WISDOM. 99 



Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; 
cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. 
— Maek Twain. 

"Five great enemies of peace are ever with us — avarice, am- 
bition, envy, anger and pride. Banish these and you will enjoy 
perpetual peace." 

" Many of the failures of life are not due to the lack of ability 
or power, it is only from lack of self-confidence to make that 
ability felt and recognized by others." 

•' The great difference between the feeble and the powerful, the 
great and the insignificant, is energy — invincible determination, 
a purpose once fixed and then death or victory." 

"Never go in search of your wants; if they be real wants they 
will come home in search of you ; for he who buys what he does 
not want will soon want what he cannot buy." 

Choose some trade, business or profession, and then stick to it, 
bending all your intellect and energies toward becoming an ex- 
pert in the branch you have chosen and you'll be a success. 

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get 
paid for it, don't sell it. So, you will have calm days, drowsy 
nights, all the good business you have now, and none of the bad. 

— RUSKIN. 

" Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him 
mastery of palaces and fortune wherever he goes. He has not 
the trouble of earning or owning them — they solicit him to enter 
and possess." 

If you are engaged in a business don't act as though you are 
ashamed of it. If the business will not permit you to respect 
yourself, and win the respect of others, get out of it— the sooner 
you do this the better. 



100 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

"The darkest day in any man's earthly career is that wherein 
he fancies that there is some easier way Qf gaining a dollar 
than by squarely earning it." 

It is impossible for a man to go through the world with his 
eyes and ears open without seeing and hearing something, and 
what he sees and hears depends entirely upon the places he fre- 
quents and the company he keeps. 

" Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall stand before 
kings." But 

"The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and 
drowsiness shall clothe a man in rags." 

Be a gentleman at all times. Do not allow yourself for one 
moment, no matter what your surroundings or circumstances 
may be, to be other than a gentleman. Bear in mind that we 
are to others what we appear to be. Dress like a gentleman if 
you can afford it; but be one always. You cannot afford to be 
anything else. 

To achieve any great success you must be courageous. By 
being bold and decisive you will inspire courage in those around 
you and intimidate those opposed. Courage of itself will win 
many a battle, while a timid man is defeated at the beginning. 

" Don't lose time in vain distress; 
Work, not worry brings success. 

Don't lose hope, who lets her stray 
Goes forlornly all the way. 

Don't lose patience, come what will; 
Patience oft-times outruns skill." 



HON. STEPHEN ALLEN'S GUIDE TO 

SUCCESS. 

Keep good company or none. Never be idle. 

If your hands cannot be usefully employed, 
attend to the the cultivation of your mind. 

Always speak the truth. Make few promises. 

Live up to your engagements. 

Keep your own secrets. 

When you speak to a person look him in 
the face. 

Good company and good conversation are the 
very sinews of virtue. 

Good character is above all material things. 

Your character cannot be materially injured, 
except by your own acts. 

If anyone speaks evil of you, let your life be 
so that no one will believe him. 

Drink no kind of intoxicating liquors. 



102 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

Ever live — misfortune excepted — within your 
income. 

When your retire to bed, think over what you 
have been doing during the day. 

Make no haste to be rich, if you would pros- 
per. 

Small and steady gains gives competency 
with tranquility of mind. 

Never play any game of chance. 

Note.— A printed slip, of which the above is a copy, 
was found in the pocket-book of Hon. Stephen Allen, who was 
a victim of the Henry Clay disaster during the autumn of 1853. 
It is worthy of your consideration, for if you follow the advice 
here given you cannot be a failure. 



If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible 
substitute for it.— James A. Garfield. 

Work as if on you in the universe depended success, and trust 
as if all depended on the power of your God.— H. W.. Foote. 



HOW TO BECOME RICH. 

Husband your means if you want to become 
wealthy. The first thousand dollars is the 
hardest to accumulate. Money makes money, 
and after you have saved a capital you will 
readily find an opportunity to employ it to your 
advantage. The only secret of accumulation is 
to disburse less than you receive; if you spend 
all you get it matters little whether you receive 
one dollar or one thousand dollars a day — you 
can never get rich that way. 

A man can have a great deal of money and 
still be a gigantic failure; he can be without 
riches and yet be a magnificent success. 

I do not seek to decry the value of money or 
the advantages it affords, for it is essential, in a 
measured degree, to our material needs and 
well being. If a man owns money, and re- 
cognizes it as an instrument with which he can 



104 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

make the world better, wiser or happier, it is 
good. But if the money owns the man — as is 
too often the case — it cannot be otherwise than 
bad for him and the rest of mankind. 



'Tis the ever moving, babbling brook that 
contains the purest living water. Death lurks 
in the stagnant pool. Activity is life, stagna- 
tion is death. The man who is inactive becomes 
unhealthy and each day is less able to cope with 
life and its duties. That which is a pleasure to 
the active man is oftentimes a task to him who 
has allowed his energy to wane. 

"I have lived," says the indefatigable Dr. 
Clarke, "to know that the great secret of hu- 
man happiness is this — never to suffer your 
energies to stagnate. The old adage of 'too 
many irons in the fire ' conveys an abominable 
falsehood; you cannot have too many. Poker, 
tongs and all — keep them all going." 



A SOUND BODY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS 
IN LIFE. 

He that has good health is rich, though he know it not. — Italian 
Proverb. 

I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the condition of 
health.— Emerson. 

Perhaps the greatest aid to success in life is 
good health and a sound, well- developed body. 
It is certainly true that there is nothing which 
can recompense us for its loss, and it is equally 
true that the sweetest joys of life cannot be 
realized without it. 

Every young man starting out to achieve 
success in life should pay attention to the de- 
mands of the body; for without a sound body 
one cannot have a sound mind, and a sound 
mind is necessary for success. 

Mental demands are raised to a perilous 
height now-a-days. The mad rush for wealth 
and fame is carried to an alarming extent. Men 



106 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

in pursuit of fortune are blind to physical de- 
mands and mind activity is pushed too far, with 
the result that many successful business and 
professional men drop out of the race at an early 
age owing to nervous prostration and other ills, 
such as Bright's disease, heart failure, apo- 
plexy, etc. For the nutrition of the brain 
nearly one-fourth of all the blood of the body 
is consumed, and when the brain is overworked 
it becomes incapable of recuperation by nutri- 
tion. Men who labor with the brain, as a rule, 
blindly and recklessly squander vital forces. A 
large number of the deaths we read about daily, 
result from a neglect of physical demands and 
a consequent drain of nervous forces. 

Health ought to be almost an object of wor- 
ship and the pursuit of it a duty for young and 
old. Wise educators no longer ignore the body, 
and many colleges have embodied physical cul- 
ture in their curriculum. 

Every young man should continue to take 
physical exercise after entering business life. 
It is only by doing so that the mind and body 
can be kept in perfect condition. Prof. Leonard 



A SOUND BODY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS IN LIFE. 107 

Smith asserts that regular physical exercise 
keeps up a healthy tone of the system, removes 
the temptation for the use of stimulants, and 
that it aids temperance and morality — bringing 
about happiness and assuring a strong and hale 
posterity. Prof. Smith's endorsement ought to 
convince every thinking young man of the value 
of physical training. 

Gladstone, the famous English statesman, is 
fond of saying that he owes his health, success 
and length of life to habitual physical exercise, 
and Talmage, the well-known divine, says: "In 
twenty years of professional life I have only 
missed one sermon through sickness, and I at- 
tribute it to taking regular physical exercise in 
a gymnasium and out-of-doors. And it is better 
than all the curatives on earth." 

Thomas Carlyle, in an address to the students 
at Edinburgh, spoke the following earnest 
words: "Finally, I have one advice to give you 
which is practically of very great importance. 
You are to consider throughout, much more 
than is done at present, and what would have 
been a very great thing for me if I had been 



108 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

able to consider, that health is a thing to be 
attended to continually ; that you are to regard 
that as the very highest of all temporal things 
for you. There is no kind of achievement you 
could make in the world that is equal to perfect 
health. What to it are nuggets of gold?" 

All engaged in sedentary occupations should 
spend at least two hours a day in a gymnasium, 
or in outdoor exercise which will require the 
exercise of all the muscles of the body. The 
gynasiums of to-day are perfectly safe places. 
Formerly the aim of the gymnast was to turn 
out men who could lift heavy weights and court 
death on the flying trapeze. Now-a-days all 
this is changed. Physical culture has become 
an art, and men and women of ability have 
made physical development a profession, and 
aim at making persons strong and healthy. 

It is a mistake to think that only boys need 
to cultivate and exercise the body, for, while 
physical culture is especially beneficial to 
the young, it is also essential to the welfare 
of the young professional and business man. 
Indeed, there is no limit to the age at which 



A SOUND BODY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS IN LIFE. 109 

modern physical exercise will do good. Another 
essential to health — which is too often ignored 
or neglected — is rest and sleep. On this subject 
Dr. J. C. Jackson remarks: 

"As a habit and fashion with our people, we 
sleep too little. It is admitted by all those 
who are competent to speak on the subject, 
that the people of the United States, from day 
to day, not only do not get sufficient sleep, but 
they do not get sufficient rest. By the pre- 
ponderance of the nervous over the vital tem- 
perament, they need the recuperating benefits 
which sleep can afford during each night as it 
passes. A far better rule would be to get at 
least eight hours' sleep, and, including sleep, 
ten hours of recumbent rest. It is a sad mis- 
take that some make, who suppose themselves 
qualified to speak on the subject, in affirming 
that persons of a highly wrought, nervous tem- 
perament need — as compared with those of a 
more lymphatic or stolid organization — less 
sleep. The truth is, that where power is ex- 
pended with great rapidity, by a constitutional 
law, it is regathered slowly; the reaction, after 



110 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

a while demanding much more time for the 
gathering up of new force than the direct effort 
demands in expending that force. 

44 Without the proper amount of sleep," says 
Prof. Hubland, "the vital energy is dried up 
and withered, and we waste away as a tree 
would, deprived of the sap that nourishes it. 
The physical effects of sleep are that it retards 
all the vital movements, collects the vital power 
and restores what has been lost in the course of 
the day, and separates us from what is useless 
and pernicious. It is, as it were, a daily crisis, 
during which all secretions are reformed in the 
greatest tranquility and perfection." 

Great men have almost invariably been great 
sleepers. General Grant used to say that he re- 
quired nine hours' sleep to keep him in condi- 
tion for the hard work of his campaigns. 
William Pitt was a sound sleeper, and is said to 
have slept night after night in the House of 
Commons while his colleagues watched the de- 
bates and roused him when it was necessary for 
him to speak. And Napoleon is said to have 
been able to sleep soundly on the eve of an 



A SOUND BODY ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS IN LIFE. Ill 

approaching battle, upon the result of which 
depended the fate of his armies. 

Nothing is more essential to life than health. 
Man's destiny, as regards the body, is to a great 
extent in his own keeping. Unless disease is 
inherited, every mortal is born into the world 
physically healthy, and if proper attention be 
given to physical demands, will in all probability 
reach old age; but if neglected, premature 
death surely comes, for when disease attacks 
the frame there is not sufficient strength to re- 
sist it. Hence it is of great importance that 
every young man starting out to win success in 
life should study his body and pay careful at- 
tention to its demands. Health is of more 
value than wealth, for without health one can- 
not enjoy wealth if he has it. 



We hear a great deal about the " vile body," and many are 
encouraged by the phrase to transgress the laws of health. But 
Nature quietly suppresses those who treat thus disrespectfully 
one of her highest products, and leaves the world to be peopled by 
the descendants of those who are not so foolish.— Herbert Spencer. 



THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD WIFE. 



"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, andobtaineth favor 
of the Lord." 



Probably there is nothing, aside from per- 
sonal habits, which to so large a degree either 
contributes to or detracts from a man's success, 
as woman's influence. Well may a man, pos- 
sessing a good wife, say: 

" Her price is far above rubies." 

Married life has its cares, but also has its joys~ 
— joys which can come in no other way; and, 
if one is fortunate in the choice of a wife, 
the happiness it brings will more than com- 
pensate for increased responsibilities. Some 
one has written: " Of all the pleasures that en- 
dure in human life, none are more worthy of 
the pursuit of a rational creature than those 
which flow from mutual returns of conjugal 



THE INFLUEHCE OF A GOOD WIFE. 113 

love. A happy marriage comprehends all the 
pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of 
sense and reason, and all the sweets of life." 

Henry Ward Beecher said: "A bad woman 
is the worst thing in the world, and a good 
woman is the best thing in the world." 

A man who has the right kind of a wife 
possesses one of the greatest aids to the success- 
ful surmounting of life's difficulties that could 
possibly be given him. But — and its an im- 
portant word in this connection — if he is married 
unwisely; if he is not in sympathy with his 
wife, and she with him; if instead of mutual 
encouragement and support they follow differ- 
ent roads, or work against each other, then 
marriage is indeed a failure and life's path 
leads through a desert wilderness and under 
cloudy skies, instead of over green fields and 
beside laughing waters. 

I question if there is a step in life upon which 
so much depends, which goes so far to make or 
mar the future of both sexes, and has an equal 
influence in determining the worth or worth- 
lessness of succeeding generations as this mat- 



114 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

ter of marriage. Married not mated, brings 
the verdict of failure to thousands of people, 
the natural product of hasty, unwisely con- 
sidered, or so-called marriages of convenience. 

In "The Economy of Human Life" is con- 
tained the following advice: 

" Take unto thyself a wife, but examine with 
care, and fix not suddenly; on thy present 
choice depends the future happiness of thee 
and thy posterity. If much of her time is de- 
stroyed in dress and adornments; if she is en- 
amoured with her own beauty and delighted 
with her own praise; if she laugheth much 
and talketh loud ; if her foot abideth not in her 
father's house, and her eyes with boldness rove 
on the faces of men; though her beauty were 
as the sun in the firmament of heaven, turn thy 
face from her charms, turn thy feet from her 
paths, and suffer not thy soul to be ensnared by 
thy imagination. But when thou findest sensi- 
bility of heart joined with softness of manners; 
an accomplished mind with a form agreeable 
to thy fancy, take her home to thy house — she 
is worthy to be thy friend and companion." 



THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD WIFE. 115 

"Reprove her faults with gentleness; exact 
not her obedience with rigor; trust thy secrets 
in her heart, her counsels are sincere, thou 
shalt not be decived." 

" She is the wife of thy bosom, treat her 
with love; she is the mistress of thy house, 
treat her with respect; she is the mother of thy 
children, be faithful to her bed." 

N. S. Stowell, in an article on domestic hap- 
piness, says: 

"A woman who is confided in and trusted 
will, as a rule, feel quite as much pride in, and 
interest for her husband's prosperity as he him- 
self does, and it is almost always possible, when 
business is depressed, for a well-informed wo- 
man to curtail expenses and suit her demands 
to the exigencies of the situation. But where 
there is no understanding or confidence, where 
money is literally doled out, and that, too, in 
the most grudging manner, a feeling of resent- 
ment springs up, and the idea prevails that 
there must be just so much contention anyway 
in order to get what is required. Under such 



116 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

circumstances there is no wonder if the de- 
mands are excessive and infelicities follow fast 
upon one another's heels. 

The money question, more than any other, is 
responsible for the reluctance of woman to 
marry and their ambition to provide a com- 
petence for themselves." 

A man will receive the greatest benefit and 
happiness from his wife only as he appreciates 
her worth, and shows her that he does appre- 
ciate her worth. Many a man has wrecked 
success in life by failing to do this, and no man 
can have a part in the supreme happiness he 
might otherwise have enjoyed, if his own acts 
are not in harmony with the woman he has 
promised before God to love and cherish. 

Gladstone pays the following tribute to his 
wife: 

'* No words that I could use would ever suffice 
to express the debt I owe her in relation to all 
the offices that she has discharged on my behalf, 
and on behalf of those that are nearest and 
dearest to us, during the long and happy period 
of our conjugal union." 



THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD WIFE. 117 

From a quaint little book entitled, ''Whispers 
to a Newly Married Pair," which was published 
many years ago, I quote this paragraph: 

" Make it an established rule to consult your 
wife on all occasions. Your interest is hers; 
and undertake no plan contrary to her advice: 
for there is in a woman an intuitive quickness, 
a sagacity, a penetration, a foresight into the 
probable consequences of an event, that make 
her peculiarly calculated to give her opinion and 
advice." 

To marry, and marry wisely, is a duty of 
every well-balanced, healthy man — when cir- 
cumstances will permit. It is not only a duty 
to himself, but a duty which he owes to society 
and posterity. But to a man whose soul is so 
indefinably small that he looks upon marriage 
simply as a means of accomplishing his own 
selfish purposes; who thinks that because a 
woman has consented to marry him that she is 
his property, to do with as he pleases, and that 
when she so consents, she then and there for- 
feits all her personal rights, we would say: 
don't marry; don't even think of it. It is bet- 



118 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

ter that a man of your mental calibre remain 
single to the end of the chapter. 

If we are agreed that the sweetest of all 
earthly pleasures is found in the home life — 
and it is the bad man only who dares to dissent — 
the man who has no power of absorption for 
the simple and pure joys of life, but seeks his 
pleasures in dissipations and excesses of the 
world outside his home — then we are ready to 
admit it is invariably the wife and mother who 
contributes most largely to make the home 
happy. The husband and father, also the 
children, are large factors in and contributors 
to the general happiness; but the wife, and 
pre-eminently the mother, is the crowned queen 
of the home circle; and with what gentle, 
loving and graceful sway she rules her subjects! 
Who ever thinks of disputing her mild decrees? 
How we all honor and cherish and love her; 
with what graceful tact she disperses the rip- 
ples of discontent and smooths away the rough- 
ness that comes from contact with the world 
outside of home. What ready sympathy she 
has for all our worries and troubles, be they 



THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD WIFE. 119 

small or great, and with gentle, loving words of 
counsel unravels the tangles, makes smooth 
the rough places and wins us into forgetfulness 
of self, and, in a word, makes our home a haven 
of rest and love and joy and peace; a refuge to 
which we turn as gladly as ever did devotee to 
his Mecca, or pilgrim to his shrine. 

For such homes, and from the direct outcome 
of such women's hallowed influence, comes 
all that is best in social, political and economic 
reform. Multiply such homes, and the measure 
of their increase is the measure of the solution 
of those great questions which bear so heavily 
upon the betterment of the human race. The 
sanctity of the home then becomes the safe- 
guard of the town, city, state and nation. Is it 
not truly so in a large measure to-day ? If 
ever the drink habit is conquered, it will be, 
under God, largely from the wife and mother 
influence radiating from the pure home and 
disseminated by the husband and children of 
such women. 

Think of these things, my young friends; 
there is no matter that will confront you in a 



120 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

lifetime more important or fraught with larger 
consequences. In all marriages, happiness is the 
desideratum, but the matter is broader than in- 
dividual happiness or family happiness. You 
are but a unit in your community, yet if the 
Master knew what He was talking about when 
He said that "A little leaven leaveneth the 
whole lump," it is in your, power to sweeten 
the whole baking. If you make no mistake, 
marry the right person, at the right time and 
live a right life, you will have a happy home, a 
happy life, and will have contributed to the 
world's happiness. Living, you will be honored: 
dying, you will be missed. And if you have 
failed of the Utopian idea of success — the dream 
of your youth — the brightness, the calm, the 
peace, the purity and the happiness you do 
enjoy, mark a success more true, more real and 
more lasting than any that can come from mere 
money-getting or from fame or any of the so- 
called successes for which men barter happi- 
ness, 



THE RICH AND GREAT NOT ALWAYS 
HAPPY. 

Col. Ingersoll, in one of his lectures, says: 
"Some people tell me, ' your doctrine about 
loving, and wives, and all that, is splendid for 
the rich, but it won't do for the poor/ I tell 
you to-night there is more love in the homes of 
the poor than in the palaces of the rich. The 
meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for 
the gods, and a palace without love in it is a 
den only fit for wild beasts. That is my doc- 
trine. You cannot be so poor that you cannot 
help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest 
commodity in the world; and love is the only 
thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower 
and lender both. Do not tell me you have got 
to be rich. We have a false standard of great- 
ness in the United States. We think here that 



122 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

a man must be great, that he must be wise, 
that he must be notorious; that he must be ex- 
tremely wealthy, or that his name must be on 
the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. 
It is not necessary to be rich or great, or to be 
powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the 
successful man. Happiness is the legal tender 
of the soul. Joy is wealth. 

"A little while ago I stood by the grave of 
the old Napoleon — a magnificent tomb of gilt 
and gold, fit almost for a dead deity — and gazed 
upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian mar- 
ble, where rests at last the ashes of that rest- 
less man. I leaned over the balustrade and 
thought about the career of the greatest soldier 
of the modern world. I saw him walking over 
the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. 
I saw him at Toulon. 1 saw him putting down 
the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him at 
the head of the army in Italy. I saw him 
crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tricolor in 
his hand — 1 saw him in Egypt in the shadow of 
the pyramids — I saw him conquer the Alps and 
mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of 



THE RICH AND GREAT NOT ALWAYS HAPPY. 123 

the crags. I saw him at Marengo — at Ulm and 
Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the 
infantry of snow and the cavalry of wild blasts 
scattered his legions like winter's withered 
Leaves. I saw him at Liepsic in defeat and dis- 
aster driven by a million bayonets back upon 
Paris, clutched like a wild beast, banished to 
Elba. I saw him escape and take an empire by 
force of his genius. I saw him on the frightful 
field of Waterloo, where chance and fate com- 
bined to wreck the fortune of their former 
king; and I saw him at St. Helena, with his 
hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the 
sad and solemn sea. 

"I thought of the orphans and widows he had 
made, of the tears that had been shed for his 
,glory, and of the only woman who had ever 
loved him — pushed from his heart by the cold 
hand of ambition — and I said I would rather 
have been a French peasant and worn wooden 
shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut 
with a vine growing over the door, and the 
grapes growing purple in the kisses of the 
autumn sun. I would rather have been that 



124 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

poor peasant, with my loving wife by my side, 
knitting as the day died out of the sky — with 
my children upon my knees and their arms 
about me — I would rather have been that man 
and gone down into the tongueless silence of 
the dreamless dust, than to have been the im- 
perial personation of force and murder." 



Each excellent thing once well learned serves for a measure of 
all other knowledge.— Sir Philip Sidney. 

Self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to "sovereign power. 

And, because right is right, to follow right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. 

—Tennyson. 

A peace above all earthly dignities — 
A still and quiet conscience. 

-Henry VIII. 

" The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; but the 
soul of the diligent shall be made fat." 

"It is not ease, but effort — not faculty, but difficulty, that 
makes men." 



"Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things 
to industry." 



SUMMARY. 

The author takes it for granted that the 
reader who has accompanied him thus far in his 
efforts, desires success in life, and that he has 
realized that such success depends upon follow- 
ing certain rules, and working upon specific 
principles; and, also, that he has concluded 
that the road before him is often a long and 
tedious one to travel before he can hope to 
gain the goals of contentment, ease and happi- 
ness. 

The author hopes that the roads to be followed, 
and the directions for traveling them, have 
been pointed out in a manner sufficiently clear 
to prevent serious mistakes. But there may be 
some who desire a briefer set of rules. To such 
he would say, if you have inherited good 
health and a sound body, thank God and your 
parents for them, and show your appreciation 



126 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

of them and their priceless value by living in a 
manner that will be conducive to their long 
continuance. But if you have inherited a 
weaker constitution, a physique less robust, 
strive to add to their strength and capacity by 
judicious exercise and by avoidance of all 
excesses and dissipations. 

Study your inclinations and capabilities until 
you are reasonably sure of what you can do best, 
and then put forth your best efforts to gain a 
practical knowledge of the vocation you pur- 
pose following. You may well believe that you 
cannot acquire too much of such knowledge, 
and life is too short to squander any time, in 
what must be a fruitless endeavor, to master 
anything of moment outside of the vocation 
you have already considered and determined 
to make your life work. 

Be honest and true to yourself, upright and 
faithful with your fellowmen — not because it is 
the "best policy" so to be, but because it is 
right. Anything worth calling success cannot 
be attained by "crooked" dealings or "shady" 
transactions. Bear this in mind: there are but 



SUMMARY. ffl 

two ways to do anything — there is no half way 
between right and wrong; give the wrong way 
no thonght, for a false step once taken makes 
the next step more easy and you will surely find 
it easier to prevent false steps than to retrace 
them. 

Don't drink liquors or use narcotics except by 
the advice of a physician, and should their aid 
be necessary to fight disease, discontinue their 
use when that necessity is removed. Alcohol 
is the devil's chief executive and tobacco is his 
prime minister. Both of them are robbers who, 
under the guise of frendship and good cheer, 
will cheat you out of all that is sweetest and 
dearest in life; their methods of procedure are 
so well planned and so smoothly executed that 
their real work is little suspected until the 
chains of habit are forged and fastened upon 
the victim, and then, cilas, it is too late to 
escape. 

Be cautious in all you do or say. Rash acts 
and hasty words often undo in a moment work 
that you have labored long to accomplish. Re- 
member that every act, every word, every 



128 THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

thought has its effect; no deed is so small that 
it fails entirely of result, and it is safe for you 
to compute interest in advance of the time it 
naturally becomes due. 

Do your best at all times and don't allow 
yourself to worry; worry exhausts more brain- 
force and does far more damage to the nervous 
system than would ten times the same force 
put into work; it cannot fail to do you perma- 
nent injury and detract from your usefulness to 
others. 

Shun evil companions; no good can come to 
you through their influence, and harm must 
come from their immoral practices; seek the 
society of good people, they will strengthen 
yon ; associate with those older in wisdom than 
yourself, it will tend to elevate you. 

Eespect yourself and you will be respected. 
Your private life will make itself felt in y our 
business life; no square-dealing man is ever 
inclined to entrust his business to a man whose 
private life will not bear close investigation. 

Good clothes are a badge of respectability, 
therefore dress as well as you can afford, other 



SUMMARY. 129 

things being equal they will give you a stand- 
ing among your associates which carelessness 
in dress will detract from. 

Don't under estimate the value of friendship; 
a friend — who is tried and true — is a possession 
to be guarded with the greatest care; and one 
cannot expect to make or retain friends unless 
he cultivates the virtues which attract others 
to him. 

Fear nothing but the consequences of wrong- 
doing; always fear these, for " Time is the old 
justice that examines all offenders." 

Keep your own secrets. " Thy friend has a 
friend, and thy friend's friend a friend. Be 
discreet." 

Marry a true woman; be a good husband, and 
have a home of your own. 



CONCLUSION 

This book is neither fiction nor legend. It 
consists of facts founded on the experience and 
conclusions of some of the greatest and wisest 
of men. That it will accomplish its mission is 
the earnest hope of the author. But all things 
must come to an end. Success — worldly suc- 
cess — is but temporary at best. The things we 
work the hardest to gain must, some day, be 
left behind forever. Death knocks at every 
man's door, irrespective of his bank account 
or his social standing. His Grimness never 
stops to ask about the one or the other. Death 
has no favorites, and no compunction. Neither 
can he be bribed. When he comes for us, and 
not until then, will we fully realize how we 
have builded. And then, as we stand face to 
face with the infinite and the eternal, shall be 



CONCLUSION. 131 

determined the question of the success or the 
failure we have made of our lives. 

Dear reader, we bid you farewell with these 
immortal lines of Bryant: 

" So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan which moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 



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